Guilford-based InveniAI, a technology spinout of New Haven biotech BioXcel Therapeutics, announced Tuesday that it had hit a major milestone in its collaboration with a Japanese drug company.
The Tokyo-based company, Kyowa Kirin, reported that it had used InveniAI’s AlphaMeld platform to match a drug candidate with a target mechanism. The findings triggered a milestone payment received by InveniAI as part of a collaboration deal between the companies.
InveniAI President and CEO Krishnan Nandabalan said, “We are delighted with the progress of our synergistic collaboration with Kyowa Kirin and the advancement of an AI-identified target and associated clinical utility at unprecedented speed.”
InveniAI and Kyowa Kirin have been collaborating since 2018. The two firms are partnering on ongoing projects aimed at discovering new drug candidates in several disease areas.
Yoshifumi Torii, head of R&D at Kyowa Kirin, said, “ We also look forward to the selection of additional novel programs identified by InveniAI’s truly game-changing platform and believe that our collaboration will contribute to addressing enduring unmet medical needs.”
Last year InveniAI announced it would team up with another Japanese company, Osaka-based Shionogi & Co. Ltd., to identify, evaluate and optimize new targets for drug discovery.
Powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, InveniAI’s AlphaMeld platform generates testable hypotheses by analyzing data including modes of pharmacotherapy, disease severity, gene ontology, disease pathways, proteinopathies and other factors.
Contact Liese Klein at lklein@newhavenbiz.com.
