G7 Therapeutics

The company's primary business was centered on its proprietary drug development platform, designed to create specific small molecules and biologics that target GPCRs. GPCRs are a crucial family of membrane proteins linked to numerous human diseases, making them a significant class of drug targets. G7 Therapeutics developed two distinct and complementary proprietary technologies, SaBRE and CHESS, to stabilize these receptors. This stabilization is a critical step for enabling structure-based drug design, particularly for GPCRs that are present in very low numbers on cells. The platform was noted for its ability to rapidly identify a high number of stabilizing mutations, accelerating the generation of high-quality GPCRs for research and development.

The business model involved leveraging this specialized technology to form strategic partnerships with larger pharmaceutical and biotech companies. A notable collaboration was an agreement with MorphoSys in 2015 to discover and develop novel antibody candidates against a set of GPCR targets. In November 2016, Heptares Therapeutics, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sosei Group Corporation, acquired G7 Therapeutics for CHF 12 million in cash. The acquisition was strategic, aiming to combine Heptares' StaR® platform with G7's SaBRE and CHESS technologies to enhance R&D productivity in generating stabilized GPCRs. Following the acquisition, G7 Therapeutics was renamed Heptares Zurich and became a Swiss-based subsidiary of Heptares.