Ono Pharmaceutical, twoXAR Collaborate on Drug Discovery Research

On March 18, 2019, Ono Pharmaceutical, a Japanese pharmaceutical R&D company, and twoXAR, an artificial intelligence (AI)-focused biopharmaceutical company, announced that the companies have signed a drug discovery research collaboration to jointly discover and develop novel, efficacious treatments to address unmet medical needs in a specific neurological disease.

Under the agreement, twoXAR will use its proprietary AI technology to identify a set of lead compounds which demonstrate a new mechanism of action and will be further optimized by Ono for potential drug candidates. twoXAR will also predict a set of hypotheses which suggest the efficacy and safety of such lead compounds for the therapy. twoXAR and Ono will select several compounds with their hypotheses from this set to test in further validation studies. Ono will retain exclusive rights to develop and commercialize the compounds obtained through this collaboration globally, and in return, twoXAR will receive research and license fees from Ono as well as development and sales milestones.

“As we expand our portfolio of drug discovery programs through collaborations with experienced drug development teams, we are honored to enter this collaboration with Ono Pharmaceutical. Ono has a rich history in drug development, and our partnership represents their continual commitment to improve efficiency in R&D,” stated Andrew A. Radin, co-founder and CEO of twoXAR, in a company press release. “twoXAR continues to grow its drug development partnerships internationally, and this collaboration with Ono represents our second with a globally-operating, Japan-headquartered partner.”

“We highly value twoXAR’s approach to help drug discovery because it enables rapid identification and in-vitroand in-vivo efficacy validation of new lead compounds,” said Toichi Takino, corporate officer executive director, Discovery & Research, Ono Pharmaceutical in the press release. “By combining Ono’s drug discovery experience and twoXAR’s AI technology, we believe that we can increase the speed and probability of success in discovering and developing innovative first-in-class drugs to expand our neurological disease pipeline.”

Source: twoXAR