SHANGHAI, August 24, 2021-- Insilico Medicine (“Insilico”), an end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company, and 4B Technologies Co., Ltd. ("4B Technologies"), a leading end-to end innovative biopharmaceutical company focusing on nervous system diseases, signed a strategic collaboration agreement in advancing the development of innovative small molecule therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other major neurological diseases.
This strategic collaboration will enable Insilico’s AI technology to be widely applied in the early stages of R&D to speed up novel drug discovery for neurological diseases by combining 4B Technologies' breakthrough science and cutting-edge platform technologies in CNS drug discovery and development. Both companies will work together very closely in an effort to discover novel compounds for ALS treatment through identifying and verifying targets related to the pathophysiology of ALS with improved efficiency and better safety and tolerability to benefit patients worldwide.
ALS is a rapidly progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the five incurable diseases with no effective treatments so far with most patients only surviving for 3-5 years.
4B Technologies is a leading neurological diseases company, co-founded by Dr. Bai Lu, a renowned neuroscientist and professor at Tsinghua University, and Dr. Xiaoming Guan, former vice president of neurological diseases R&D at GSK. Insilico is an industry leader in AI-driven drug discovery and has established collaborations with multiple leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including Pfizer, Astellas, Merck, UCB, Janssen and Taisho. From target validation to preclinical candidates, Insilico successfully nominated two novel compounds for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and kidney fibrosis within 24 months, which is an impressive achievement.
“We are pleased to partner with 4B Technologies to address the unmet medical needs for the treatment of ALS. This collaboration will leverage Insilico’s unique synthetic biology and synthetic chemistry AI platform and 4B Technologies' deep insights in targeting strategies, biology, translational research and clinical medicine in the field of neurological diseases to accelerate novel drug discovery for ALS," said Feng Ren, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Drug R&D at Insilico.
"Drug discovery and development is a time-consuming and expensive process. According to data published by Nature, it takes an average of 10 years and $2.6 billion for a novel drug to be developed. Traditional drug discovery and development requires not only a huge investment, but also a big risk. The application of AI technologies in drug discovery and development has made great progress in recent years and is expected to deliver breakthroughs in the pharmaceutical industry, such as significantly shortened timelines and reduced cost. Neurodegenerative diseases including ALS pose great challenges in medical research and are one of the focus areas of 4B Technologies. We are establishing a broad ALS alliance with academia, hospitals, patient groups, and industrial partners. Our collaboration will enable 4B to apply insilico’s leading AI technology to expediate our R&D process and generate synergistic effects to accelerate the treatment of ALS,” said Xiaoming Guan, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of 4B Technologies.
About Insilico Medicine
Insilico Medicine, an end-to-end artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery company, is developing artificial intelligence platforms. These platforms use deep generative models, reinforcement learning, transformers, and other modern machine learning techniques for novel target discovery and the generation of novel molecular structures with desired properties. Insilico Medicine is developing breakthrough solutions to discover and develop innovative drugs for cancer, fibrosis, infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, and age-related diseases.
Website：www.insilico.com
About 4B Technologies
4B Technologies was founded with its mission to focus on novel medicines for neurodegenerative diseases and neurological injuries. With deep insights in neurosciences and CNS drug discovery, we have developed a strategic framework to increase probability of success by tackling key challenges faced in CNS drug research and development, including targeting strategy, animal model development, basic-to-clinical translation, biomarkers, and clinical trial design. Through in-house drug discovery efforts as well as strategic alliance with academic and industrial partners, 4B Technologies has built and is advancing a pipeline of innovative medicines into the clinic to validate their therapeutic potentials. Our aspiration is to become a global leader in developing innovative medicines for neurological diseases.
Website：www.4btechnologies.com