PostEra spearheads AI-driven drug discovery collaboration to develop antiviral therapeutics with initial $68M in NIH funding
PR96069
BOSTON, May 19, 2022 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --
PostEra, a biotechnology company specializing in machine learning for
preclinical drug discovery, today announced a multi-year collaboration with the
National Institutes of Health to develop small molecule antiviral therapeutics
to prevent pandemics. The center will receive initial funding of $68M. PostEra
co-leads this initiative with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, a
global charity with expertise in drug development for global equitable access,
and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1722598/PostEra_Logo.jpg
As part of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases Antiviral Program for Pandemics, the AI-driven
Structure-Enabled Antiviral Platform (ASAP) consortium aims to discover dozens
of lead compounds against key viruses of significant pandemic concern, such as
flaviviruses (responsible for endemic diseases such as Dengue and Zika),
picornaviruses (including potentially debilitating enteroviruses as well as
other cold-causing viruses), and coronaviruses. ASAP will further deliver three
IND-ready candidates which can be immediately ready for clinical evaluation in
the event of a viral outbreak, so that future pandemics can be halted before
severe outbreaks occur. The consortium is committed to making resulting
antivirals globally and equitably accessible, so that no patient population is
left behind.
ASAP will use PostEra's end-to-end AI-first approach to accelerate the
discovery process, generating molecules with optimised properties, designing
rapid synthesis, and optimally prioritising experiments. In particular, AI
approaches are tightly integrated into structural biology to realize next
generation structure-based design. ASAP is built on the success of the COVID
Moonshot (
) project, a global open-science AI-driven initiative that began in March 2020
and rapidly identified antiviral drug candidates that target the main protease
of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
"We are honored to be co-leading this consortium," said Dr Alpha Lee, Chief
Scientific Officer of PostEra, who co-founded COVID Moonshot. "We believe that
our AI platform will accelerate the discovery of therapeutics that will prevent
pandemics."
ASAP is funded by the National Institutes of Health grant number
1U19AI171399-01 via the Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) U19 Centers, part of
the Antiviral Program for Pandemics.
About PostEra
PostEra (
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=3541674-1&h=1070854232&u=https%3A%2F%2Fpostera.ai%2F&a=PostEra
) was founded in 2019 and its technology is built on pioneering academic
research done by its founding scientists. PostEra's technology addresses some
of the key challenges in drug discovery R&D by integrating molecular design
with chemical synthesis. PostEra advances small molecule programs through
partnerships with biopharma, working on its own internal pipeline, and also
offering some of its synthesis technology via its Manifold (
) web platform. PostEra also helped launch the world's largest open-science
drug discovery effort; COVID Moonshot, along with an NIH-funded antiviral
research center for the prevention of future pandemics.
SOURCE: PostEra
Aaron Morris, asap@postera.ai
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