Centrose LLC
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
Centrose's automated sugar synthesis platform CarboConnect can quickly and economically synthesize drugs with a wide variety of natural and unnatural sugars attached to them. The inspiration came from sugars found in natural products. Many of the antibiotics produced by microorganisms and plants contain sugars, but they are structurally different from sugars found in animal physiology. The company has already completed some proof-of-concept studies on derivative drugs in which unnatural sugars increased potency and in some cases changed the mechanism of action.