TORONTO & SEOUL, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Renowned South Korean healthcare company, Yuhan Pharmaceuticals (Yuhan) and Cyclica Inc. (Cyclica), a leading neo biotechnology company announce a collaboration to apply Cyclica’s proprietary AI-integrated drug discovery platform in two separate R&D programs. Yuhan is keen on implementing innovative technologies to enhance drug development efforts and will utilize Cyclica’s unique end-to-end AI-integrated drug discovery platform across diverse therapeutic areas to develop novel advanced lead-like molecules with desired chemical properties against the targets of interest determined by Yuhan’s R&D priorities.
Yuhan will leverage Cyclica’s integrated drug discovery platform, Ligand DesignTM and Ligand Express® to generate novel chemical entities with desired polypharmacological, physicochemical, and ADMET properties while providing insights into systems biology and structural pharmacogenomics.
Cyclica will receive an upfront payment as well as receive milestone payments upon the completion of specific objectives. Through this collaboration, Yuhan and Cyclica envision a long-term relationship to enhance future R&D and drug discovery efforts to identify novel solutions for unaddressed therapeutic needs.
Yuhan CEO and President Jung Hee Lee said, “We are very pleased to be collaborating with Cyclica to apply its proprietary AI-integrated drug discovery platform in our R&D programs, and hope to expand our partnership upon the success of the collaboration. Yuhan is dedicated to offering first-in-class to the patients within a short time by applying new computational methods, including AI and Big Data that can shorten the time and the cost required for drug development.”
“It’s an honour to collaborate with Yuhan, a visionary company that is thinking deeply about the future of the discovery of better medicines, and the application of new computational methods, including machine and deep learning. I am confident that this collaboration, and the future relationship with Yuhan and Cyclica will benefit patients waiting for new and better medicines.” said Naheed Kurji, President and CEO of Cyclica.
About Yuhan Corporation.
Yuhan Corporation is a South Korea-based healthcare company founded in 1926. The company has positioned itself as one of the top pharmaceutical companies in terms of market cap and sales revenue in Korea. The core business consists of primary & specialty care, dietary supplements, household & animal care, and contract manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients. It has a number of subsidiaries and a global presence in the form of joint ventures with the Clorox Company(USA) and Kimberly-Clark Corporation (USA). Yuhan (000100:KS) is a publicly-listed company traded on the Korea Stock Exchange.
About Cyclica Inc.
Cyclica is a Toronto-based, globally recognized biotechnology company that leverages AI and computational biophysics to reshape drug discovery. Cyclica provides the pharmaceutical industry with an integrated and end-to-end enabling drug discovery platform focused on polypharmacology. Ligand Design and Ligand Express offer a unique AI-augmented platform to design advanced lead-like molecules that minimize unwanted off-target effects, while providing a holistic understanding of a molecule's activity through integrated systems biology and structural pharmacogenomics. By doing more with artificial intelligence, Cyclica aims to revolutionize a system troubled with attrition and costly failures, accelerate the drug discovery process, and develop medicines with greater precision.
