BlackThorn Therapeutics

BlackThorn Therapeutics was a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that focused on creating targeted therapeutics for neurobehavioral disorders. Founded around 2013-2015, the company was a spinout from The Scripps Research Institute. The founding scientific team included individuals such as Alex Tkachenko, Bill Martin, Ed Roberts, and Hugh Rosen. BlackThorn aimed to address the historical challenges in neuropsychiatric drug development, such as patient heterogeneity, by using a data-driven approach.

The company's core was its proprietary cloud-based computational psychiatry platform, known as PathFinder™ or INFORM. This platform integrated and analyzed multimodal data, including brain imaging and objective behavioral assessments, to identify dysfunctional brain circuits and objective neuromarkers. By doing so, BlackThorn sought to identify specific, biologically-based patient subgroups most likely to respond to a particular treatment, thus bringing a precision medicine approach to brain disorders. This strategy was intended to increase the probability of clinical trial success.

BlackThorn's business model was centered on advancing its pipeline of small-molecule drug candidates through clinical trials. The company raised significant capital, including a $40 million Series A in 2016 and a $76 million Series B in 2019, from prominent investors like ARCH Venture Partners, GV (formerly Google Ventures), and Johnson & Johnson Innovation. Its pipeline included several drug candidates targeting various receptors linked to neurobehavioral disorders. One lead program, BTRX-335140 (later navacaprant or NMRA-140), was a kappa opioid receptor (KOR) antagonist developed for major depressive disorder. Another program, BTRX-323511, was a vasopressin 1a receptor antagonist for conditions like autism spectrum disorder.

In 2020, BlackThorn Therapeutics was acquired by Neumora Therapeutics and became a foundational part of the new, larger company. Neumora, which launched in 2021 with $500 million in financing, integrated BlackThorn's team, platform, and clinical-stage assets to continue the mission of developing precision medicines for brain diseases. BlackThorn's lead drug candidates continued their development under Neumora's stewardship.

Keywords: neurobehavioral health, computational psychiatry, precision medicine, biopharmaceutical, neuroscience, CNS disorders, drug discovery, clinical trials, artificial intelligence, machine learning, neuromarkers, patient stratification, kappa opioid receptor, vasopressin receptor, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, ARCH Venture Partners, Neumora Therapeutics, INFORM platform, PathFinder platform