Heptares Therapeutics is a drug discovery company based on transformational technology for the GPCR target family that will deliver best-in-class and first-in-class drug candidates in multiple disease areas.

GPCRs play a crucial role in many diseases and are the site of action of 25-30% of current drugs; as such they represent a major area of interest for pharma companies. However, these membrane proteins are inherently unstable when removed from their membrane environment and drug discovery technologies for this target class have been restricted to cell-based methods.

Heptares’ broad in-house drug discovery capability is based around its breakthrough proprietary GPCR stabilisation technology, known as StaR^® (Stabilised Receptor). This platform enables the Company to apply powerful but hitherto unavailable discovery techniques to GPCRs, including X-ray structure-based design, receptor binding kinetic analysis, fragment screening, and antibody generation. These techniques are combined with medicinal chemistry and antibody technologies to create a fully integrated drug discovery platform.

The Company is leveraging its GPCR drug discovery capabilities to develop a pipeline of completely novel, high-quality small molecule (NCE) and monoclonal antibody (mAb) leads that are likely to display superior selectivity, potency and safety over existing GPCR drug candidates in development.

Heptares was founded in 2007 and is based at the BioPark (Welwyn Garden City, UK).