Bridge Biotherapeutics, a South Korean clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel drugs for inflammation, fibrosis and oncology, and Scripps Research, an independent, nonprofit biomedical institute ranked the most influential in the world for its impact on innovation by Nature Index, have announced a research collaboration to discover and characterize novel reactive groups that target non-cysteine residues to uncover new druggable sites in targets of high therapeutic value.

Bridge Biotherapeutics will collaborate with Phil S. Baran, Ph.D., and Benjamin F. Cravatt III, Ph.D., pioneers in the fields of covalent targeting and chemical biology.

The company aims to develop novel therapeutics for high-value targets in the oncology and immunology space and believes that innovative reactive group chemistries combined with proteomics can facilitate this objective. Bridge seeks to discover proprietary, tunable ligands for covalent drug development and protein degrader applications.

Under the terms of the multi-year collaboration agreement, Scripps will conduct research and development activities, and Bridge Biotherapeutics will retain an exclusive option to acquire worldwide license and patent rights from the research program to further develop and commercialize the technology.