Colorado start-up launches to improve drug discovery chemistry

A new company has entered the drug discovery space with what it calls a “chemistry-first” platform. Colorado-based Cime Therapeutics has emerged from stealth with
$2.1 million in preseed financing to advance its method for efficiently synthesizing and screening molecules that could become oncology drugs.

Cime’s platform uses the latest in materials science, laboratory automation, and synthetic organic chemistry and is powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, says James Brewster, the firm’s founder and CEO. The goal, he says, is to expedite the synthesis of potential small-molecule drug compounds multifold.

The typical chemist can synthesize 50–100 drug-like molecules a year, Brewster says. With Cime’s approach, “we’re able to make hundreds of thousands a day.”

Although Brewster plans to harness AI, he says he has a bias for synthesis over simulation because it yields molecules that are one step closer to being a drug candidate.

Brewster is steeped in organic chemistry. He earned a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and completed postdoctoral research at Harvard University. He then joined Pfizer as a scientist with the company’s oncology team in Boulder, Colorado. After working there for 3½ years, he was laid off in 2024 when Pfizer decided to shut down the site.

In August, Brewster decided to start a company to tackle the inefficiencies in synthesizing drug compounds he encountered throughout his time in academia and industry. He put together a scientific advisory board that includes Jonathan Sessler, a chemistry professor at the University of Texas at Austin; Ronald Hinklin, a medicinal chemist who previously worked at Pfizer; and veteran chemist Pat Confalone.

Brewster says the new funds will go toward building a laboratory in Colorado where his team will synthesize compounds that act on known high-profile oncology targets. “We will start by looking into transcription factors, phosphatases, and kinases, which at present don’t have many compounds targeting them,” he says.