Biotech startup GPC-Rx taps Accelerator venture capital

The Accelerator seems to have struck gold in California.

The local incubator is investing in its second Seattle startup that uses technology developed at the California Institute of Technology.

The company, GPC-Rx, will focus on a new method to produce drugs that are more targeted than those on the market.

By designing therapies to zero in on certain receptors on the surface of cells, called GPCRs, the company hopes to hit a few home runs.

Many commercially available drugs work by targeting GPCRs, but the company says its drugs could be more precise and have fewer side effects. Its technology, which uses computer simulations of the structure of GPCRs, could also be used to design therapies of great complexity.

"Our greatest value is to do things that were impossible," said Bard Geesaman, who left a job as the executive director for life sciences of the X Prize Foundation in Boston to become GPC-Rx's chief scientific officer.

Many drug discoveries happen randomly. Caltech's technology could enable a rational method of selection that would significantly speed up the process of finding the right drug to treat a targeted ailment, said Accelerator Chief Executive Carl Weissman.

"We could skip all the hit-and-miss discovery stage," he said.

GPC-Rx is one of the Accelerator's "most substantial investments," Weissman said.

Typically, the incubator invests between $1.5 and $5 million into fledgling firms.

Although Weismann declined to disclose the sum, he said it's in the upper end of that range.

GPC-Rx will need the money to contract with outside medical chemists and to pay for the massive computing power required to simulate potential therapies.

This round of funding is expected to last until the company puts a product into clinical testing, at least two years away.

GPC-Rx will be based in the Accelerator's Eastlake building.

Other than Geesaman, the startup will hire two or three key employees as it builds its way toward clinical trials in humans.

Dr. William Goddard of Caltech, who co-founded Allozyne along with the Accelerator in 2005, is also behind this venture.

Allozyne has so far proved a success, moving out of the Accelerator's nest and raising some $30 million last year.

"We're more than doubling down" on Caltech's technology, Weissman said.

Ángel González: 206-515-5644 or agonzalez@seattletimes.com