Heptares Therapeutics is a drug discovery company focused on novel small-molecule drugs targeting G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), the largest family of druggable targets.

The Company has developed a unique, transformational and proprietary technology for making purified, stabilised and functional GPCRs (known as StaRs™, Stabilised Receptors), overcoming a major limiting factor to the development of new drugs targeting this group.

Heptares’ StaR platform is based on world-class science from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK) and enables the Company to engineer and purify GPCRs in stable and functional conformations that retain their drug-binding characteristics.

For the first time, contemporary drug discovery approaches, such as crystallisation and structure-based design, biophysical analysis of ligand interactions and fragment screening can now be applied to GPCRs.

This unique approach is expected to radically improve the chances of finding drugs to previously intractable targets and will enable the development of safer and more selective therapeutic agents.

Heptares was founded in 2007.

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