Date: 19th March 2021
Valence Discovery and Repare Therapeutics have announced they have entered into a drug discovery agreement. They will leverage Valence’s unique expertise in machine learning drug design with Repare’s propriety drug discovery using a synthetic lethality approach.
Valence Discovery, based in Montreal, Canada, is an emerging leader in AI (artificial intelligence)-enabled drug design. They are committed to unlocking the true potential of deep learning in drug design. Pioneering the application of few-shot learning in drug design which allows predictions tasks on only small training datasets. Combined with their unique knowledge of generative chemistry and multiparameter optimisation, this ensures that generated molecules are of high medicinal chemistry quality and can be readily synthesised.
Repare Therapeutics, also based in Montreal, is a leading clinical stage, precision oncology company. They are at the forefront of genome instability and are pioneering synthetic lethality to develop novel therapeutics for genetically-defined patient populations. Their SNIPRx platform is a genome-wide CRISPR-based screen on propriety isogenic cell lines, which identifies novel Synthetic Lethal (SL) gene pairs – which make potential drug targets.
Perspectives
It has been estimated that AI has the potential to save the drug discovery market over US$70 billion by 2028. Due to the explosion in knowledge, technological advances, and unrivalled data generation we can now produce, AI has unparalleled data processing potential to accelerate and reduce the cost of discovering new drugs.
It is therefore not surprising we are seeing a growing trend in the collaboration of drug companies with experts in AI. From global giants such as Microsoft teaming up with Novartis to revolutionise the future of drug development by combining advanced AI technology with deep life science expertise, or new start-ups like PercayAI entering a strategic commercial partnership with Canopy Biosciences.
These types of collaborations – as seen here with Valence and Repare – offer to fast-track a new generation of drugs to the clinic, they will reduce drug time-to-market, decrease cost-to-market making drugs more affordable and therefore more readily available, and crucially have vast potential to improve patient care.
In this particular case, together Valence and Repare have the technologies to potentially unlock the next generation of precision oncology medicines for patients.
For more information please see the press release posted at Business Wire or Valence Discovery
