Complex diseases rarely have single targets. By focusing on transcription factor activity and disease signatures, Scripta Therapeutics is taking a different approach to identifying the drivers of pathology.
For decades, drug discovery has largely been driven by a target-centric mindset. Researchers identify a protein believed to play a role in disease, design a molecule to modulate it and then assess whether altering that target produces a meaningful clinical effect. While this approach has delivered important medicines, its limitations are increasingly clear, particularly in complex, multifactorial diseases such as neurodegeneration. Despite enormous investment, many late-stage failures can be traced back to an incomplete understanding of disease biology and an over-reliance on familiar or…