Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Ping Cao, Co-Founder and CEO of BridGene Biosciences, has developed IMTAC, a platform that can identify molecule ligands for hard-to-drug targets. This platform allows for proteome-wide screening for drug candidates from a small molecule library and has identified over 4,000 protein targets providing numerous opportunities for drug development. The lead candidate, BGI-9004, is a TEAD inhibitor of multiple cancers. BridGene is also in partnership with Takeda to focus on neurodegenerative disorders.   Ping explains, "For small molecule discovery, the major challenge right now is the limited druggable space. Human proteome consists of over 20,000 proteins, and approximately 12,000 of them have been confirmed to play a role in human diseases and may become targets for precision therapy."   "However, statistics analysis shows drugs so far approved by the FDA only target less than 10% of proteins. In other words, most potential drug targets within human proteome do not have associated drugs. Those targets are c