Rakovina Therapeutics Inc (TSX-V:RKV) announced the expansion of its research partnerships with the University of British Columbia and Pharma Investor in support of its collaboration with the Deep Docking AI Drug Discovery Platform.
The company in March revealed it had been granted exclusive access to the Deep Docking AI Platform for DNA-damage response targets. It is using the platform to analyze billions of molecular structures to evaluate their potential as targeted cancer drugs.
To support its drug development efforts, the company said on Wednesday that it has extended and expanded its research agreement with the University of British Columbia.
Rakovina Therapeutics’ established lead optimization research infrastructure at the university’s Vancouver Prostate Center will validate novel drug candidates identified by the Deep Docking AI Platform, the company said.
Under its expanded collaboration with British Columbia-based chemistry research and development and analytical services firm Pharma Investor, the firm has agreed to provide medicinal chemistry support to rapidly synthesize novel lead drug candidates identified by the Deep Docking AI Platform to be validated by Rakovina Therapeutics.
The company will own all the rights to novel molecules developed through the collaboration.
“These partnerships allow us to capitalize on the Deep Docking AI platform while maintaining high standards of research,” Rakovina Therapeutics executive chairman Jeffrey Bacha said in a statement.
“The most promising lead candidates will be validated using the company’s established R&D infrastructure and advanced to human clinical trials and pharmaceutical partnerships.”
CEO Dr Mads Daugaard added that these expanded research collaborations will position the company to capitalize on the Deep Docking AI platform opportunity.
“Over the next 12 to 16 weeks, we intend to screen six to eight billion compounds against our initial DDR target and anticipate synthesizing a short-list of the most promising novel drug candidates for in vitro and in vivo validation through our in-house laboratory infrastructure,” Dr Daugaard said.
“Our goal is to advance promising lead candidates toward clinical trials through collaboration with pharmaceutical development partners. With recent announcements of pre-clinical licensing deals in the DNA-damage response arena, we're confident in our ability to generate shareholder value in the near term.”