BlackThorn Therapeutics Announces Exclusive Licensing Agreement and Extension of Key Collaboration With Yale University

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BlackThorn Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing targeted treatments for neurobehavioral disorders, today announced that it is entering into an exclusive licensing agreement with Yale University School of Medicine as part of its ongoing multi-year collaboration with Yale’s Division of Neurocognition, Neurocomputation, and Neurogenetics (N3). With the goal of advancing the understanding of the neurobiological basis of dysregulated mood and behavior, BlackThorn is licensing GEMINI-DOT (Gene Expression Mapping Integrated with Neuro-Imaging for Discovery Of Therapeutics), an innovative technology that was co-developed by BlackThorn and professors Alan Anticevic, Ph.D., and John Murray, Ph.D., of Yale University.

The core innovation of GEMINI-DOT is the ability to bi-directionally map gene expression patterns and neuroimaging features to optimize the selection of drug targets and clinical populations. The science behind this technology was featured in a study led by Dr. Murray and published in the September issue of Nature Neuroscience. This study characterizes the pattern of brain-wide gene transcriptomics in humans in relation to non-invasive neuroimaging and, consequently, provide a quantitative bridge between genetic expression patterns in the human brain and neuroimaging features. Read Yale University’s news release about GEMINI-DOT and the published paper here.

“Progress toward novel therapeutics for CNS disorders has been hampered by a poor understanding of target patient populations and an inability to ground discovery and development in the underlying pathophysiology,” said Bill Martin, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of BlackThorn Therapeutics. “We believe that mapping specific neural patterns onto specific receptor gene expression profiles represents a significant advance for the field of clinical neuroscience. BlackThorn’s data-driven approach to drug development aligns with the work that N3 is doing. We look forward to continuing to identify and validate neuromarkers of behavioral variation in collaboration with Drs. Murray and Anticevic.”

About BlackThorn Therapeutics, Inc.

BlackThorn Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to transforming the lives of people with neurobehavioral disorders. BlackThorn has created a robust pipeline of first-in-class and potentially best-in-class treatments. The company uses data-driven approaches to create a unique understanding of the core underlying pathophysiology of neurobehavioral disorders and applies these insights to generate objective neuromarkers that support target identification, patient stratification and clinical trial design. BlackThorn Therapeutics is headquartered in San Francisco, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.blackthornrx.com.

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