BUSINESS INSIGHTS
Ginkgo Bioworks and Novo Nordisk, | June 08, 2022
Ginkgo Bioworks the leading horizontal platform for cell programming, announced a collaboration with Novo Nordisk, a leading global healthcare company, to create novel expression hosts for pharmaceutical products.
hundreds of millions of people are living with diabetes, obesity, and other serious chronic diseases, putting a strain on individuals, families, and healthcare systems. More effective medicines could improve treatment options for these people. Using synthetic biology, Ginkgo and Novo Nordisk will collaborate to unlock the potential of expression systems, which may accelerate and enhance the discovery and development of Novo Nordisk's biological medicines.
"Novo Nordisk is constantly pushing the boundaries for innovative tools to bring new treatments to people living with diabetes and other serious chronic diseases. Using synthetic biology and the reprogramming of expression system genomes, we have the potential to engineer biological systems that will expand the chemical space of biological medicines."
Brian Vandahl, Senior Vice President, Global Research Technologies, Novo Nordisk
"It's an honor to work with partners like Novo Nordisk that not only have an incredible range of critically important products, but that also provide us with the opportunity to do meaningful work that could help so many patients," said Jason Kelly, CEO and cofounder of Ginkgo Bioworks. "At Ginkgo, we are always on the lookout for projects that will have an outsized impact on people's lives and well-being. We're excited to be working with Novo Nordisk in our efforts to use biology to create better medicines for patients with chronic diseases."
Under the terms of the partnership, Ginkgo and Novo Nordisk will launch a multi-year collaboration. Ginkgo will receive an upfront R&D fee and is eligible to receive milestone payments as the parties advance in the collaboration.
About Ginkgo Bioworks
Ginkgo is building a platform to enable customers to program cells as easily as we can program computers. The company's platform is enabling biotechnology applications across diverse markets, from food and agriculture to industrial chemicals to pharmaceuticals. Ginkgo has also actively supported a number of COVID-19 response efforts, including K-12 pooled testing, vaccine manufacturing optimization and therapeutics discovery.
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BUSINESS INSIGHTS
PostEra | May 19, 2022
PostEra, a biotechnology company specializing in machine learning for preclinical drug discovery, announced a multi-year collaboration with the National Institutes of Health to develop small molecule antiviral therapeutics to prevent pandemics. The center will receive initial funding of $68M. PostEra co-leads this initiative with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, a global charity with expertise in drug development for global equitable access, and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
As part of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Antiviral Program for Pandemics, the AI-driven Structure-Enabled Antiviral Platform (ASAP) consortium aims to discover dozens of lead compounds against key viruses of significant pandemic concern, such as flaviviruses (responsible for endemic diseases such as Dengue and Zika), picornaviruses (including potentially debilitating enteroviruses as well as other cold-causing viruses), and coronaviruses. ASAP will further deliver three IND-ready candidates which can be immediately ready for clinical evaluation in the event of a viral outbreak, so that future pandemics can be halted before severe outbreaks occur. The consortium is committed to making resulting antivirals globally and equitably accessible, so that no patient population is left behind.
ASAP will use PostEra's end-to-end AI-first approach to accelerate the discovery process, generating molecules with optimised properties, designing rapid synthesis, and optimally prioritising experiments. In particular, AI approaches are tightly integrated into structural biology to realize next generation structure-based design. ASAP is built on the success of the COVID Moonshot project, a global open-science AI-driven initiative that began in March 2020 and rapidly identified antiviral drug candidates that target the main protease of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
"We are honored to be co-leading this consortium. We believe that our AI platform will accelerate the discovery of therapeutics that will prevent pandemics."
Dr Alpha Lee, Chief Scientific Officer of PostEra, who co-founded COVID Moonshot
About PostEra
PostEra was founded in 2019 and its technology is built on pioneering academic research done by its founding scientists. PostEra's technology addresses some of the key challenges in drug discovery R&D by integrating molecular design with chemical synthesis. PostEra advances small molecule programs through partnerships with biopharma, working on its own internal pipeline, and also offering some of its synthesis technology via its Manifold web platform. PostEra also helped launch the world's largest open-science drug discovery effort; COVID Moonshot, along with an NIH-funded antiviral research center for the prevention of future pandemics.
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PHARMA TECH
Nucleai and Sirona Dx | July 14, 2022
Nucleai, a leader in AI-powered spatial biology transforming precision medicine by unlocking the power of pathology data, and Sirona Dx, a leading provider of multiomic single-cell analytical services, today announced a collaboration to advance the discovery of novel spatial biomarkers in solid tumors. The partnership combines Nucleai’s powerful AI spatial analytics platform with Sirona Dx’s leading multiplex assay development expertise to identify novel spatial signatures in high-plex assays that predict response to therapy and inform treatment decisions. Through this strategic collaboration, Sirona Dx will provide Nucleai and its customers with a CRO partner that will enable the deployment of AI-based diagnostic algorithms to support biopharma clinical trials.
Nucleai’s robust computational AI-powered spatial biology algorithm supports various image modalities and cancer indications, offering a highly customizable, deployable solution across the drug development ecosystem. These capabilities earned Nucleai the position of one of the top 10 spatial biology companies in 2022.
“Multiplex imaging technologies have improved rapidly over the years; however, identifying actionable insights from all the data collected remains immensely challenging. This powerful synergy between Sirona Dx and Nucleai is very exciting as it will allow us to identify actionable spatial signatures that can predict response to immunotherapy.”
Avi Veidman, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Nucleai
Sirona Dx is recognized as the original pioneers of spatial biology, having launched the first spatial-omics CRO service to biopharma in 2018. Today, their technology-agnostic, spatial biology suite includes the leading multiplexed imaging platforms and combines deep technical expertise required to develop high-performance multiplexed assays as large as 50 markers. Sophisticated multiplexed tissue imaging capabilities contributed to their selection as a Top 10 CRO of 2021 by Medhealth Outlook.
“We are delighted to announce a partnership with Nucleai,” said Andrew Brown, Ph.D. Chief Commercial Officer at Sirona Dx. “Nucleai’s AI-driven analytical capabilities are exceptional. Our combined expertise in multiplexed tissue assay development, data generation and state-of-the-art analysis will unlock new spatial insights and accelerate the spatial biology revolution in precision medicine.”
About Nucleai
Nucleai is an AI-powered spatial biology company with a mission to transform drug development and clinical treatment decisions by unlocking the power of pathology data. Nucleai provides pharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations, and diagnostics laboratories with a state-of-the-art AI platform to improve clinical trials and clinical decision-making.
About Sirona Dx
Sirona Dx is a technical, CLIA accredited CRO, founded in 2016 to accelerate the pace of immunotherapy and targeted therapy development. With a leading-edge menu of specialized high complexity, single-cell proteomics and genomics services, Sirona Dx supports exploratory biomarker programs and advanced precision medicine initiatives to deliver safer and more effective treatment solutions.
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