Versant-backed Belharra: light-based chemoproteomics for all amino acids

Spun out of Scripps and backed by Versant, newly launched Belharra has incorporated an amino acid-agnostic photochemistry technology into a chemoproteomics platform to expand the universe of druggable targets for small molecules.

Belharra Therapeutics Inc. believes its innovation — photoaffinity-based probes that explore interactions between proteins and ligands inside cells — will allow the company to discover previously unknown druggable pockets on proteins, enabling it to identify and develop molecules that bind to targets previously thought to be intractable...