Five months after Rakovina Therapeutics pivoted toward artificial intelligence, the cancer-focused biotech has joined forces with Variational AI to identify new therapies against DNA-damage response (DDR) targets.
The plan is for Variational AI to use its Enki platform to identify novel inhibitors of specific DDR kinase targets selected by Rakovina before handing the Canadian biotech a short list of potential drug candidates. Rakovina will then use the following 12 to 18 months to synthesize and evaluate the viability of these candidates as potential cancer therapies in its laboratories at the University of British Columbia, the biotech explained in a Sept. 17 release.
The financial details were left vague, but we do know that Rakovina will pay a “low upfront fee” to begin work on each selected target as well as an exercise fee if it wants to acquire the rights to any resulting drugs. Further milestone payments could also be on the table.
Variational AI describes Enki as “the first commercially available foundation model for small molecules to enable biopharmaceutical companies to discover novel, potent, safe, and synthesizable lead compounds for a small fraction of the time and cost versus traditional chemistry approaches.” Merck & Co. became an early user of the platform at the start of the year.
Rakovina’s own R&D work remains in preclinical stages, with the biotech’s pipeline led by a pair of dual-function DDR inhibitors aimed at PARP-resistant cancers. In March, the Vancouver-based company announced a “strategic evolution” that involved gaining access to the Deep Docking AI platform developed by University of British Columbia professor Artem Cherkasov, Ph.D., to identify DDR targets.
“This collaboration is an ideal addition to our already established Deep Docking AI partnership as it expands Rakovina Therapeutics’ pipeline beyond our current focus of developing next-generation PARP inhibitors,” Rakovina Executive Chairman Jeffrey Bacha said in today’s release.
“Leveraging Variational AI’s expertise in kinases where it overlaps with our DDR interest will significantly increase partnering opportunities as ‘big pharma’ maintains a close interest on novel therapies against these targets,” Bacha added.