PostEra, a biotech company specializing in machine learning solutions for preclinical drug discovery, has forged a partnership with Pfizer for speeding up the discovery of small molecule drugs by using a platform technology based on generative chemistry.

The company’s machine learning technology can fast track the drug discovery process by designing novel molecular structures that have optimized potency and drug-like properties.

PostEra’s approaches are said to take chemical synthesis into account besides incorporating design hypotheses of medicinal chemists.

Through the multi-year collaboration, the companies will make use of Pfizer’s extensive data and expertise with the technology capabilities of PostEra to advance the science of generative chemistry to produce scalable models that can be deployed potentially across in-house, preclinical drug discovery efforts.

Charlotte Allerton – Head of Medicine Design, Pfizer said: “We believe that our investments in machine learning technologies could potentially help us expedite preclinical drug discovery. PostEra’s technology complements this effort, and we look forward to seeing the results of the collaboration.”

PostEra will get an upfront payment from the US pharma giant and will also stand to earn additional payments as the project progresses.

Besides, the biotech company will retain ownership rights to all algorithms developed during the partnership.

Aaron Morris – CEO of PostEra said: “PostEra is delighted to be working with Pfizer to solve some of the key pain points in preclinical drug discovery.

“As a team we are proud to be entering this collaboration and will be leveraging PostEra’s many advances in machine learning to help Pfizer accelerate progress toward novel therapeutics.”

Last month, PostEra entered into a collaboration with NeuroLucent for identifying small-molecule therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease.

  Aaron Morris, Charlotte Allerton, Drug discovery, machine learning, Pfizer, PostEra, small molecule drugs, USA