Iktos and Curreio Announce Collaboration Agreement in New Drug Discovery

Iktos, a company specialized in Artificial Intelligence for new drug design and Curreio, a Japanese company specializing in structural analysis of biomolecules using cryo-electron microscopy, announced a collaboration agreement in AI for new drug design. In this collaboration, Iktos’ de novo generative design technology in combination with Curreio’s state-of-the-art cryo-EM platform will be used to facilitate the rapid and cost-effective design of novel preclinical drug candidates for an undisclosed target.

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Iktos’ Makya generative AI technology helps to bring new insights and directions into the molecular discovery process by automatically designing virtual novel molecules that have desired activities for treating a given disease. This approach uniquely enables the exploration of the chemical space and produces innovative molecule designs with optimized predicted properties, freedom to operate, and built-in synthetic accessibility thanks to the integration of Iktos’ Spaya retrosynthesis AI technology. It is a novel solution to one of the key challenges in small molecule design: rapid identification of molecules that simultaneously satisfy multiple parameters, such as potency, selectivity, safety, and project-specific properties.

In the context of the collaboration, Iktos’ generative AI technology will be combined with structure-based modelling, using insights produced thanks to Curreio’s cryo-EM platform to design structures maximizing protein-ligand interaction and with high probability of meeting the project’s Target Product Profile (TPP).

Structural analysis technology using Cryo-EM is one of the best technologies in the three-dimensional structural analysis of biomolecules, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017. In particular, single-particle structure analysis using Cryo-EM is an analytical technique with many advantages, such as no need for crystallization and the obtaining of structures in aqueous solution. On the other hand, the success rate of structural analysis using Cryo-EM depends on the maturity of related technologies. Curreio has unique technologies for production and purification of protein samples optimal for Cryo-EM, as well as for the grid preparation and 3D structural analysis. This technology enables the structural analysis of difficult protein and protein-supramolecular complexes, thereby expanding the possibilities of drug discovery for these targets.

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“At Iktos, we strive to build an innovative technology platform capable of improving the efficiency of drug discovery by combining our powerful algorithmic technology and our know-how derived from the experience of our many collaborations. We are therefore thrilled to enter into a research collaboration with Curreio, a specialist in structural analysis of biomolecules and to combine our technology platforms to accelerate structure-based drug discovery together”, said Yann Gaston-Mathé, Co-founder and CEO of Iktos.

“We are delighted to announce that we have successfully signed a collaborative research agreement and excited about this collaboration with IKTOS, a company based in France known for its highly advanced AI technology. We have high hopes that this joint research, utilizing our cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) technology, will greatly accelerate our unique structure-based drug design (SBDD) efforts”, said Motoki Nakai, founder and CEO of Curreio, Inc.

Incorporated in October 2016, Iktos is a French start-up company specialized in the development of artificial intelligence solutions applied to chemical research, more specifically medicinal chemistry, and new drug design. Iktos is developing a proprietary and innovative solution based on deep learning generative models, which enables, using existing data, to design molecules that are optimized in silico to meet all the success criteria of a small molecule discovery project. The use of Iktos technology enables major productivity gains in upstream pharmaceutical R&D. Iktos offers its technology both as professional services and as a SaaS software platform, Makya. Iktos is also developing Spaya, a synthesis planning software based upon Iktos’s proprietary AI technology for retrosynthesis.

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