Nuage Tx has been awarded a Eurostars grant to develop a first-in-class covalent inhibitor targeting ASCL1-driven small cell lung cancer (SCLC-A) 

Nuage Therapeutics has been awarded a highly competitive Eurostars grant to accelerate the development of first‑in‑class covalent inhibitors of ASCL1 for the treatment of small‑cell lung cancer (SCLC‑A). Eurostars is an EU research funding programme targeted at Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). 

This new funding will enable Nuage Tx to advance key translational components of the program, including the establishment of a robust PK/PD framework for covalent IDP‑targeting molecules, the development and deployment of next‑generation chemoproteomic approaches to assess target engagement in biological systems, and the exploration of novel mechanisms that may enhance selectivity and safety.  

The Eurostars grant will enable Nuage Tx to continue demonstrating that its novel technology can unlock the druggability of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDPs), a class of proteins long considered “undruggable”. IDPs play a critical role in multiple diseases across different therapeutic areas, including oncology. Nuage’s proprietary technology makes these disordered proteins, which lack a stable shape, temporarily adopt a defined structure.
As a result, researchers can design drugs capable of recognising and acting on them, something that was previously impossible. This breakthrough represents a significant shift in drug discovery, turning protein “disorder” into a therapeutic opportunity.  

Nuage’s groundbreaking approach is initially being deployed to target transcription factors that are key to the growth of specific cancers. With this new funding, Nuage Tx will continue advancing its innovative research, targeting oncogenic transcription factors that drive cancer progression while shutting down key disease pathways that have remained inaccessible to conventional drug discovery.