Company developing novel small molecule protein degraders for intractable diseases

Ligature Therapeutics Pte Ltd, an early-stage biotech company developing small molecule “protein degrader” therapeutics, has announced the close of USD6 million in seed round funding. The financing, led by Lightstone Ventures, with the participation of Enterprise Singapore’s investment arm, SEEDS Capital, will be used to build out the team and advance Ligature’s platform technology.

Lightstone Singapore L.P. cofounded Ligature in 2020 with its scientific founders Alvin Hung, Ph.D., Thomas Keller, Ph.D., and Congbao Kang, Ph.D. to take a novel approach to design small molecules capable of degrading disease-causing proteins. Drs Hung, Keller, and Kang are from the Experimental Drug Discovery Centre (“EDDC”), a national platform hosted by A*STAR for drug discovery and development. Ligature has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with EDDC to develop its protein degrader platform.

“Lightstone Singapore is committed to building companies based on innovative life science-related technologies developed in Singapore. The founding of Ligature is an example of our efforts to translate these Singapore-based scientific innovations into life-saving therapeutics,” said Kenneth D. Noonan, CEO of Lightstone Singapore. “By working with highly motivated scientists like Alvin, Thomas, and Congbao, we hope to build globally competitive drug discovery companies.”

“We are pleased to be co-investing with Lightstone Ventures, a globally recognised life science investor to support Ligature in accelerating their platform technology to develop novel therapeutics for patients,” said Ted Tan, Chairman of SEEDS Capital. “We will continue to work with top-tier investors to build and support deep tech startups such as Ligature, to grow the local biotech sector and further strengthen Singapore’s position as a regional Pharmbio hub.”