WARSAW, Poland & DURHAM, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Molecure S.A. (‘Molecure’, SWE Ticker: MOC) and Avicenna Biosciences, Inc. announced today that they have entered into a strategic research collaboration to facilitate the discovery and development of novel small molecule drugs targeting ubiquitin-specific protease 7 (USP7), a deubiquitinase relevant in a number of tumors. The collaboration will combine the extensive expertise of Molecure related to drug discovery and biology of USP7 with Avicenna’s machine learning-driven medicinal chemistry platform to identify novel drug candidates with superior pharmaceutical properties.
USP7 is an attractive target in cancer which regulates the stability of crucial proteins involved in pathways relevant for tumor suppression and immune response. Under the terms of the agreement, Avicenna will design algorithms to identify new chemical entities which inhibit USP7, and meet pre-specified pharmacological criteria. Molecure will be responsible for synthesizing and evaluating these new chemical entities and selecting one or more for further development. Molecure retains the right to develop and commercialize novel drug candidates resulting from the collaboration.
Avicenna, under the risk-sharing model, will receive an upfront fee and research funding, which will be contingent upon the generated compounds meeting the established success criteria. Additionally, if Molecure exercises the option to license the generated molecules, Avicenna will be eligible for license fees and will retain a specified share in the future revenues derived from drug candidates developed by Molecure.
Marcin Szumowski, Molecure’s CEO said: “By combining Molecure’s in-depth knowledge of this attractive, validated in vivo target with Avicenna’s ML-driven medicinal chemistry platform, we intend to generate superior drug candidates with optimal pharmacological profiles for further preclinical and clinical development.”
Chris Meldrum, President & CEO of Avicenna, stated: “We have been very impressed with the Molecure team, their deep expertise in targeting USP7, and their efforts to deliver new treatment options to patients with difficult-to-treat cancers. Avicenna welcomes the challenge to transform chemical potential to biological and clinical reality for this important target.”
About Molecure S.A.
Molecure S.A. is a biotechnology company that discovers and develops drugs to the clinical stage, leveraging its own unique expertise in medicinal chemistry and biology to search for and develop first-in-class small-molecule drugs that, through direct modulation of previously unexplored protein and RNA targets, may provide therapies for many incurable diseases.
Molecure has generated a diverse portfolio of seven distinct programs with support from leading academic research institutions around the world, including Yale University, Rutgers University, the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) in Ghent, the University of Michigan and the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, Poland (MIBMiK).
The most advanced drug candidate developed by Molecure is OATD-01, a first-in-class CHIT1 inhibitor for the treatment of interstitial lung diseases such as sarcoidosis, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and MASH. The second drug candidate is OATD-02, an oral, selective, first-in-class, dual arginase inhibitor (ARG1 and ARG2) for the treatment of cancer, whose Phase I clinical trial has begun with first patient administration in Q1 2023.
Molecure’s headquarters and laboratories are located in Warsaw and Lodz. The company is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (ticker: MOC). Detailed information can be found at: https://molecure.com/pl/
LinkedIn: Molecure | Twitter: @molecure_sa | YouTube: Molecure SA
About Avicenna Biosciences
Avicenna was founded in 2020 by Drs. Thomas Kaiser and Pieter Burger out of the Liotta Research Group at Emory University. The company is on a mission to solve the intractable drug design challenges that previously stopped drug candidates in their tracks. Its machine learning-driven medicinal chemistry platform makes lead-to-drug optimization faster, cheaper and more successful – transforming sub-optimal clinical candidates into life-saving drugs. Avicenna is backed by DCVC Bio. The company’s peer-reviewed research has been published in outlets such as Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. For more information, visit www.avicenna-bio.com and follow the company on LinkedIn.
