Quench Bio to shut down, says target is undruggable

Quench Bio, a start-up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says it will wind down after concluding that its drug target is undruggable. The announcement, made on Twitter, came a little more than a year after the company announced raising $50 million in series A financing to develop small-molecule inhibitors of gasdermin-D, an innate immune system protein that causes pyroptosis, a form of inflammation-induced cell death. Quench says it auctioned its program to an undisclosed company and plans to publish its major findings and protein structures. Remaining capital will be returned to investors.