It’s often been said that nature makes the best medicines, and history has proven this to be true: penicillin, cyclosporine and the blockbuster cholesterol-lowering statins are just a few examples. Yet until recently, pharmaceutical drug discoverers had largely abandoned searches for candidates from natural sources, deeming them too slow and expensive.
Now, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI)’s ability to rapidly analyze huge datasets, drug discovery from nature is having a resurgence. One company is achieving remarkable progress with a bold goal: to map the function and therapeutic potential of all of nature’s chemistry and propel the development of groundbreaking therapies.
The company, Kapoose Creek Bio, is currently riding a wave of successes, having recently announced the advancement of two lead compounds in neurology, and the acquisition of an exclusive license to pre-eminent chemical informatics technology. Adding the new technology to its existing AI platform, unEarth Rx, has given Kapoose Creek Bio a significant edge; together, the technologies create a bespoke, end-to-end solution for natural-product drug discovery.
Unlocking the potential of natural chemicals
Kapoose Creek Bio is headquartered in Vancouver, with research and development (R&D) facilities located at McMaster Innovation Park, in the drug discovery hub of the Greater Toronto Area. The company is revolutionizing drug discovery from nature using AI-powered technology and a proprietary collection of microbes sourced from across Canada, including from an untapped natural ecosystem in a North Pacific rainforest. It aims to find the next generation of world-changing medicines and is currently focused on advancing its lead neurology compounds, KCB-100 and KCB-200.
These compounds have been shown to have nanomolar potency as neurotrophic agents—molecules that support the growth, survival, and differentiation of both developing and mature neurons—and could be promising treatments for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases or depression.
“We are now working to identify optimal indications for development, which will create near-term value and where we think there will be strong investor interest,” said Eric Brown, CEO. “Kapoose Creek Bio is also developing proprietary synthetic-biology approaches for the production of leads at scale, to power its downstream development.” The company is backed by a group of entrepreneurs and angel investors from the Vancouver area and supported by a substantial partnership with McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, where Brown holds a professorship.
Revealing emerging therapeutics. A functional map of drug-like chemistry derived from over 12,500 drugs and bioactive chemicals guides Kapoose Creek Bio’s efforts to uncover novel life-saving medicines.
Kapoose Creek Bio has chosen to focus initially on molecules mapping to the neuroactive functional space. “From our analysis of fungal metabolites, we were struck immediately by an enrichment in neuroactive natural products and we’ve seen activity from compounds that we believe have strong potential in neurological indications,” said Brown.
Fungal compounds as therapeutic leads
There has been a surge in interest in using psychoactive compounds such as psilocybin, found in many species of fungi, to treat mental health disorders. “They’ve become a very hot area in drug discovery,” said Antonia Borovina, managing director of investment banking at Bloom Burton, a Canadian healthcare-specialized investment-banking firm currently advising Kapoose Creek Bio with its pipeline strategy. “Those psychedelic molecules have shown really robust efficacy, but they do have limitations in terms of side effects. So, the big opportunity for us is this: can we develop next-generation molecules that activate these pathways without causing some of the psychedelic effects?”
Brown is confident the answer is yes. These natural compounds provide potent leads for chemical optimization to improve drug-like and oral-dosing characteristics such as the ability to pass through the blood–brain barrier. “The potential to find new neuroactive compounds without hallucinogenic or psychedelic side effects is very real,” he said.
Charting unexplored chemical space
In addition to the advancement of its two lead compounds, Kapoose Creek Bio is also differentiating itself with its unique fungal collection. So far, it has assembled more than 5,000 specimens and cultures—with 30% of strains having no species match in public databases.
Tailored by hundreds of millions of years of interspecies evolution, nature’s chemistry and its therapeutic mechanisms have enormous potential in medicine. Kapoose Creek Bio is using AI and modern omics technologies, especially metabolomics and phenomics, to identify and catalog nature’s chemistry.
The company’s unEarth Rx AI technology rapidly identifies and charts the mechanism-of-action of molecules in its collections using cutting-edge metabolomic and phenotypic characterization of microbial metabolites. “We have brought together the best technologies we could find in metabolomics, chemical informatics and high-content phenotypic screening,” explained Brown. “We are building a world-unique map of structure, function and therapeutic potential of nature’s molecules. This serves as the perfect starting point in our quest to develop new medicines.”
Brown is excited about the future. “We believe there’s never been a better time to be a drug discoverer and the prospects have never been brighter for the future of medicines from nature,” he said.