Tokyo, Japan and Cambridge, UK, 10 October 2023 – Sosei Group Corporation (“Sosei Heptares” or “the Company”; TSE: 4565) and PharmEnable Therapeutics, a UK drug discovery company, announce they have expanded their collaboration to apply their respective technologies to drive novel drug discovery for a second neurological disease target.
Sosei Heptares is known for its expertise in receptor protein structure determination, Structure-Based Drug Design (SBDD) and translational development. PharmEnable will apply its proprietary artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled medicinal chemistry platform (chemUNIVERSE) to design highly specific drug leads for further development.
Expanding their 2021 agreement, the companies will jointly conduct and share the costs of the discovery and the development programme and will co-own any resulting products equally. The companies are already exploiting their complementary capabilities in an ongoing collaboration focused on an initial target receptor, where they have identified promising small molecules with a new binding mode and novel chemotype.
Dr. Matt Barnes, President of Heptares Therapeutics and Head of UK R&D, commented: “Based on our experience working on our initial collaboration target, PharmEnable’s proprietary AI platform has demonstrated a level of success that supports us extending our collaboration. We look forward to applying our SBDD expertise along with PharmEnable’s novel chemistry to further identify high quality molecules.”
Dr. Hannah Sore, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PharmEnable, commented: “We are excited to be expanding our partnership with Sosei Heptares to include an additional target. We have demonstrated the complementarity of our platform and Sosei Heptares’ structural insights while working on our first target and we look forward to continuing to work together and applying our technologies to develop life-changing medicines for neurological disease.”
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About PharmEnable Therapeutics
PharmEnable Therapeutics is a Cambridge (UK) based drug discovery company specialising in designing high quality novel chemistry to develop highly potent, selective and orally bioavailable new medicines. The company’s proprietary drug discovery platform integrates advanced medicinal chemistry expertise and cutting-edge AI/computational methods to unlock challenging biological targets and deliver highly effective therapies for diseases with significant unmet clinical need.
On a mission to deliver life-changing medicines, PharmEnable’s world-class team works across a range of disease areas where drug potency, selectivity and balance of properties poses a significant challenge. It has a pipeline of wholly owned oncology programmes, as well as ongoing co-discovery projects.
The company is backed by MP Healthcare Venture Management (the venture arm of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Group) and a syndicate of experienced life science investors.
For more information, please visit www.pharmenable.com
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