Iktos, which specialises in artificial intelligence (AI) for new drug design, is teaming up with Chiesi Group. Under the agreement, Iktos’s de novo generative design software Makya will be used by Chiesi scientists for the design of novel compounds and to accelerate hit-to-lead/lead optimisation.
Iktos’ AI technology, based on deep generative models, has been designed to bring speed and efficiency to the drug discovery process, by automatically designing virtual novel molecules that have desired activities for treating a given disease. According to Iktos, this tackles one of the key challenges in drug design: rapid identification of molecules which simultaneously satisfy multiple bioactivity and drug-like criteria for drug discovery and development.
“We are proud to work with Chiesi Farmaceutici, one of the top 50 pharmaceutical companies in the world, and to have their scientists use our software in their early discovery programs”, said Yann Gaston-Mathé, Co-founder and CEO of Iktos. “It is our ultimate goal to put our technology in the hands of drug discovery scientists, who have deep knowledge and understanding of their discovery programs. By combining their drug discovery expertise with our algorithmic and data science know-how and experience derived from the many collaborations we have established to date, we believe that the promise of AI to dramatically improve drug discovery will have a better chance to be realised and impact therapeutic development”.
