PR83937

HYDERABAD, India, May 7, 2020 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

Sai Life Sciences, one of India's fastest growing Contract Development &

Manufacturing Organizations (CDMOs),(

https://www.sailife.com/?utm_source=covid-moonshot-project&utm_medium=media&utm_campaign=covid-moonshot-pr)

today announced its collaboration with the COVID Moonshot

(https://covid.postera.ai/covid) project that aims to deliver an antiviral drug

candidate effective against COVID-19. With an in-kind contribution of a team of

Medicinal Chemists and supporting infrastructure, Sai Life Sciences will help

synthesize and profile analogues for NCEs and other previously known compounds

tested for other viruses.

Photo:

https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1164629/Sai_Life_Sciences_COVID_Moonshot.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1044186/Sai_Life_Sciences_Logo.jpg

PostEra, a biotechnology company specialising in machine learning for drug

discovery, is leading the initiative. Joining them are leading experts in the

fields of computational drug discovery, chemical synthesis and biochemical

assays. In the three months since its start in February this year, the team has

already identified over 60 experimentally-confirmed 'fragments' that

effectively target a key protein associated with COVID-19. It has now opened a

crowdsourcing initiative to accelerate the design of potential drug candidates

from these fragments and received over 4,000 submissions from contributors

around the world.

Welcoming Sai Life Sciences into the consortium, CEO of PostEra, Aaron

Morris, said, "We are immensely grateful for Sai Life Sciences' contribution to

this project. They are helping take the most promising crowdsourced ideas from

the Moonshot platform and turning these ideas into chemical reality. It is

generosity like this that gives us hope that this moonshot of a project could

achieve something ground-breaking in our search for an effective COVID

antiviral."

Speaking about its participation in the project, CEO & Managing Director of

Sai Life Sciences, Krishna Kanumuri, said, "We are delighted to join this

important global initiative. The consortium approach to finding treatments for

patients in the fight against COVID-19 is a worthy cause and something that

aligns very well with our purpose of working with partners to accelerate

solutions for improving life."

Over the past two decades, Sai Life Sciences has built up a portfolio of

NCE Discovery services

(https://www.sailife.com/services/discovery/?utm_source=covid-moonshot-project&u

tm_medium=media&utm_campaign=covid-moonshot-pr) on the foundation of a strong

chemical synthesis platform. The company today offers innovator biotechs and

pharmaceutical companies the full spectrum of Discovery services from Target ID

& Validation through till IND, in addition to a robust suite of capabilities

across NCE development and cGMP manufacturing.

About Sai Life Sciences

Sai Life Sciences is a full-service CDMO

(https://www.sailife.com/?utm_source=covid-moonshot-project&utm_medium=media&utm

_campaign=covid-moonshot-pr) driven by a vision to support the launch of 25 new

medicines by 2025. It works with innovator pharma and biotech companies

globally, accelerating the discovery, development and manufacture of complex

small molecules. A pure-play CDMO, Sai Life Sciences has served a diverse set

of NCE development programs, consistently delivering value based on its quality

and responsiveness. Today, it works with 7 of the top 10 large pharma

companies, as well as several small and mid-sized pharma & biotech companies.

Sai Life Sciences is privately held and backed by global investors, TPG Capital

and HBM Healthcare Investments. www.sailife.com

For further information

Sriram Gopalakrishnan

contact@sailife.com

Source: Sai Life Sciences