PrecisionLife and Cyclica have agreed to co-market their computational platforms. The partners aim to collaborate on up to 30 pharma and biotechnology drug discovery programs over the next two years.
U.K.-based PrecisionLife is built on a combinatorial analytic platform that is designed to glean disease mechanisms, patient stratification biomarkers and other insights from patient data sets. PrecisionLife is applying the platform to chronic diseases in collaboration with biopharma companies and other partners.
Cyclica has a platform that it and PrecisionLife view as complementary. The Cyclica platform is set up to evaluate multiple novel and rare on- and off-target interactions. Cyclica lists AstraZeneca, Bayer and Merck KGaA among its partners.
Through their strategic collaboration, Cyclica and PrecisionLife will co-market their platforms. Cyclica CEO Naheed Kurji made the case for pitching the platforms as a package in a statement to disclose the collaboration.
“Cyclica is building one of the largest and most diversified portfolios of drug discovery programs across therapeutically rich and diverse areas. PrecisionLife’s detailed, innovative insights into the biology of complex diseases and which targets are relevant to which patient subgroups deliver a major advantage as we build the biotech pipeline of the future,” Kurji said.
The partnership will build on the progress the companies have made independently in recent years. PrecisionLife completed 17 chronic disease studies last year that generated novel druggable targets. Cyclica has existing strategic relationships with academic and biopharma groups. Both companies are in commercial partnering discussions with multiple biopharma companies.
Cyclica’s existing initiatives include a collaboration with researchers at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University that identified Novartis’ MET inhibitor Tabrecta as a potential COVID-19 antiviral. The computational analysis found Tabrecta has antiviral activity against several coronaviruses.