Yuhan Pharmaceuticals has entered into a collaboration with Canadian biotechnology company Cyclica to use the latter’s artificial intelligence (AI) driven integrated drug discovery platform in two separate research and development (R&D) programs in oncology.

The South Korean healthcare company said that it is looking to adopt innovative technologies to boost its drug development efforts. In line with that, Yuhan Pharmaceuticals will make use of Cyclica’s end-to-end AI-integrated drug discovery platform for diverse therapeutic areas to develop advanced lead-like molecules having the desired chemical properties to act against the targets of interest as determined by its R&D priorities.

Cyclica’s integrated drug discovery platform – Ligand Design and Ligand Express will be used by Yuhan Pharmaceuticals to develop novel chemical entities that will have the desired polypharmacological, physicochemical, and ADMET properties while giving insights into systems biology and structural pharmacogenomics.

Jung Hee Lee – Yuhan Pharmaceuticals CEO and President said: “We are very pleased to be collaborating with Cyclica to apply its proprietary AI-integrated drug discovery platform in our R&D programs, and hope to expand our partnership upon the success of the collaboration.

“Yuhan is dedicated to offering first-in-class to the patients within a short time by applying new computational methods, including AI and Big Data that can shorten the time and the cost required for drug development.”

The Canadian biotechnology company will be given an upfront payment in addition to milestone payments based on the meeting of specific goals. Through the collaboration, Yuhan Pharmaceuticals and Cyclica are looking for a long-term relationship to improve future R&D and drug discovery efforts to identify novel solutions for unaddressed therapeutic needs.

Naheed Kurji – President and CEO of Cyclica said: “It’s an honour to collaborate with Yuhan, a visionary company that is thinking deeply about the future of the discovery of better medicines, and the application of new computational methods, including machine and deep learning. I am confident that this collaboration, and the future relationship with Yuhan and Cyclica will benefit patients waiting for new and better medicines.”

  artificial intelligence, Cyclica, Drug discovery, Jung Hee Lee, Ligand Design, Ligand Express, Naheed Kurji, Oncology, South Korea, Yuhan Pharmaceuticals