Bridge Biotherapeutics has closed its Boston-area discovery wing, according to sources familiar with the decision by the South Korean drug developer.
The closure came in the last few weeks, about four years after the Boston Discovery Center (BDC) first opened in 2020. A source described the work as largely target-agnostic, with an initial focus on oncology widening to build up a platform-like discovery effort focused on covalent inhibitors.
A spokesperson for Bridge did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Christopher Kim, the head of the BDC, didn’t respond when contacted on LinkedIn.
In November, Bridge highlighted a collaboration between the Boston site and researchers at Scripps Research, where Bridge had exclusive rights to license research out of the labs of Benjamin Cravatt and Phil Baran. A spokesperson for Scripps didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
With Bridge culling its US-based discovery work, all eyes turn to the company’s fibrosis-focused pipeline, namely the lead idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis treatment BBT-877. The biotech is currently looking to enroll 120 patients in a global Phase 2 study. Bridge first in-licensed the drug from LegoChem Biosciences in 2017, then out-licensed it to Boehringer Ingelheim two years later for €45 million upfront ($48.3 million). The deal to Boehringer included more than €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) in milestone payments.
Beyond BBT-877, Bridge is testing a tyrosine kinase inhibitor for patients with EGFR-mutated, non-small cell lung cancer who have already received a third-generation TKI.