BUSINESS INSIGHTS
Spotlight Therapeutics | July 18, 2022
Spotlight Therapeutics, Inc. a biotechnology company applying new insights to develop cell-targeted in vivo CRISPR gene editing biologics, announced the appointment of Antoine Yver, M.D., M.Sc. to the Spotlight Board of Directors. Trained as an oncologist and immunologist, Dr. Yver’s extensive industry experience and perceptive acumen will be extremely valuable as Spotlight continues to strengthen its highly differentiated TAGE platform and advance lead therapeutic candidates towards the clinic.
“We are thrilled to welcome Antoine to Spotlight’s Board of Directors. Few people in our industry enjoy such a remarkable track record of successful drug development, exercising extreme rigor in following the science to deliver practice-changing medicines that serve patients with significant unmet medical needs.”
Mary Haak-Frendscho, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Spotlight
As Executive Vice President and Global Head of Oncology R&D at Daiichi Sankyo, Dr. Yver played a key role in the development of the new breakthrough cancer biologic, Enhertu®, that is redefining breast cancer treatment and promises to set a new standard of care, as well as other Daiichi Sankyo DXd ADCs. From 2009 to 2016, Dr. Yver held executive leadership positions at AstraZeneca, including SVP & Global Head of Oncology Development. Under his leadership, Tagrisso® and Lynparza® were successfully developed and commercialized for patients. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Dr. Yver held roles at Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Aventis and Rhone-Poulenc Rorer. Dr. Yver is Executive Vice President and Chairman of Development at Centessa Pharmaceuticals plc and currently serves as an Independent Director of the Board of Directors at Sanofi.
“I am delighted to join the Spotlight Board and support the mission to unlock the full potential of gene editing and enable effective single administration therapeutics for patients,” said Dr. Yver. “Spotlight’s biologics-based delivery approach has the potential to forge a new generation of cell-targeted in vivo CRISPR gene editing medicines across multiple therapeutic areas.”
“Antoine’s deep insights and vast global pharma experience will help propel Spotlight to becoming a clinical stage company,” said Craig Gordon, M.D., Spotlight board member, Founder, CEO, and CIO of GordonMD™ Global Investments. “We look forward to working together to impact the strategic decisions of the company that will ultimately provide benefit to patients.”
About Spotlight Therapeutics
Established in mid-2018, Spotlight Therapeutics is a privately held biotechnology company advancing a pipeline of cell-targeted in vivo CRISPR gene editing therapies. Spotlight's proprietary technology platform TAGE is a new class of biologics, CRISPR effectors engineered for direct delivery in vivo, to achieve cell-selective therapeutic genome editing. Spotlight's pipeline is advancing its modular programmable CRISPR effectors towards clinical studies in immuno-oncology, ophthalmic diseases and hemoglobinopathies.
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BUSINESS INSIGHTS
Iktos, | June 29, 2022
Iktos, a company specialized in Artificial Intelligence for new drug design, announced a collaboration with Galapagos, a leading global biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative medicines, to apply Iktos’s generative modelling artificial intelligence (AI) technology in one of Galapagos drug discovery programs. Under the agreement, Iktos will apply its de novo ligand and structure-based generative modelling technologies and software Makya™, its AI-based retrosynthesis analysis and planning tool Spaya™, and its know-how in computational drug design to expedite the identification of potential pre-clinical candidates and to identify additional novel chemical matter with suitable properties. Galapagos scientists will benefit from direct access to Makya™ and Spaya™ as part of the collaboration.
Iktos’s AI technology, based on deep generative models, helps to bring new insights and directions into the drug discovery process based on a comprehensive data-driven chemical structure generation technology. This technology automatically designs virtual novel molecules with all of the characteristics of a successful drug molecule. This approach, validated through multiple collaborations, is a novel solution to one of the key challenges in drug design: rapid identification of molecules that simultaneously satisfy multiple parameters, such as potency, selectivity, safety, and project-specific properties. This approach uniquely enables the exploration of chemical space and produces innovative molecule designs with greater freedom to operate. Iktos has also diversified its R&D efforts into the development of an AI technology for retrosynthesis and has developed the AI-based retrosynthesis analysis and planning tool Spaya™ enabling systematic exploration and prioritisation of synthetic routes for a desired compound in minutes.
“We are thrilled and proud to join forces with Galapagos with the aim to discover optimised lead compounds for one of Galapagos undisclosed small molecule drug discovery projects. Pleased to have earned Galapagos trust, we are confident that together with Galapagos established R&D team, we will be able to identify promising novel chemical matter and solve complex multiparametric optimisation problems. The insights and feedback from Galapagos research team will be highly valuable to guide us into improving our technology and products.”
Yann Gaston-Mathé, President and CEO of Iktos
About Iktos
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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BUSINESS INSIGHTS
PROTECT PHARMACEUTICAL Corp | June 28, 2022
Protect Pharmaceutical Corporation has acquired the 100% of the shares of CJSC “Inaiapp”, a Belarusian developer of corporate software for business digitalization.
With 8 years of blockchain development experience and list of long term clients, Inaiapp will bring its qualification and management processes to a new level.
“Robotic process automation, AI systems and machine learning systems, blockchain-based solutions, Data Science tools for business growth - we closely follow global trends in IT technology and are now ready to create the most profitable solution for your business.”
Nick Greb, President of PRTT
PRTT offers range of services and software products, to solve painful problems.
The company is using time-tested practices in the field of robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain, creating first-class solutions that meet current business needs.
“Now we will combine the US market presence with extensive technical expertise that enable us to develop products that accelerate and streamline business processes through autonomy, transparency and security.” - Nick adds.
About PRTT
Protect Pharmaceutical Corporation is a full-cycle software development and delivery company that produces, releases, and supports digital products for the business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets. The company’s expertise lies in custom software development and consulting services in Business automation, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Big Data, Image recognition, Blockchain development, and cloud services. Its domain focus includes Supply chain, Logistics, Healthcare, Finance, Real estate, Legal, Insurance, Advertising, and more.
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BUSINESS INSIGHTS
Integral Molecular | June 09, 2022
Integral Molecular and Optimeos Life Sciences announce a partnership to develop next-generation mRNA and DNA therapeutics that will use antibody-based molecular targeting to direct vaccines and gene therapies to relevant tissues in a patient's body. This partnership combines Integral Molecular's experience in antibody discovery and mRNA immunization with Optimeos' technology for nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems.
DNA and mRNA therapeutics harness a patient's own molecular machinery to encode proteins. Integral Molecular and Optimeos plan to encapsulate these therapeutic molecules within nanoparticle spheres that are decorated with antibodies on the outer surface. The antibodies can then target the particles to specific tissues. Currently, gene therapies and mRNA vaccines are delivered into the body via infusion or injection, but only a fraction of the molecules arrive at their intended site. The proposed molecular targeting strategy has the potential to transform the delivery of vaccines and therapeutics by dramatically reducing dosages, decreasing toxicity, and enabling scalable administration.
Integral Molecular will apply its industry-leading antibody discovery expertise against complex cell-surface proteins to provide targeting moieties for the therapies. Its specialized MPS Antibody Discovery platform is tailored to work with challenging membrane protein targets and routinely uses mRNA-based immunization strategies. "Precision targeting of an isolated cell type with gene therapy holds great promise for genetic diseases and may provide brand-new directions in cancer immunotherapy including in vivo CAR-T cell therapeutics," said Joseph Rucker, Co-founder and VP of R&D at Integral Molecular.
Optimeos' technology allows the robust and scalable incorporation of mRNA and DNA therapeutics and other biologics into customizable nanoparticles. "We are excited to work with Integral Molecular towards the next generation of gene-therapy that no longer relies on viral-based delivery systems," said Robert Prud'homme, Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Optimeos.
Integral Molecular and Optimeos will be attending the BIO International Convention in San Diego later this month.
About Integral Molecular
Integral Molecular is the industry leader in developing and applying innovative technologies that advance the discovery of therapeutics against difficult protein targets. With 20 years of experience focused on membrane proteins and antibodies, Integral Molecular's technologies have been integrated into the drug discovery pipelines of over 400 biotech and pharmaceutical companies to help discover new therapies for cancer, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and viral threats such as SARS-CoV-2, Ebola, Zika, and dengue viruses.
About Optimeos Life Sciences
Optimeos Life Sciences has developed a novel, highly differentiated, non-viral, nanoparticle technology, for delivery of new therapeutic drugs to address important unmet medical needs. The technology is a patented and scalable polymeric drug delivery system, which was developed and refined in Professor Prud'homme's lab at Princeton University over 20 years. Optimeos' technology enables encapsulation of mRNA, DNA, peptides, proteins or small molecules, as well as their targeted delivery to cells and tissues beyond the liver.
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