Discovery partnership with GTN Ltd.

RNS Number : 8268I

C4X Discovery Holdings PLC

29 November 2018

 

C4X Discovery Holdings plc

("C4XD", "C4X Discovery" or the "Company")

C4XD enters discovery partnership with state-of-the-art artificial intelligence company, GTN Ltd.

Partnership to maximise insights from shape-based chemistry and generate novel drug candidates in neurodegeneration

29 November 2018 - C4X Discovery Holdings plc (AIM: C4XD), a pioneering drug discovery company, announces that it has entered into a drug discovery partnership with GTN Ltd. ("GTN"), a disruptive new player in the field of drug discovery artificial intelligence ("AI"), initially focussing on identifying potential small molecule hits against a high-value neurodegeneration target.

Artificial Intelligence is expected to revolutionise the drug discovery industry. GTN is at the forefront of the field, using deep-learning techniques and quantum physics to simulate, filter and search for molecules that are hidden from traditional technologies. However, over-simplistic representation of molecules is a key challenge for the application of artificial intelligence to problems of medicinal chemistry, resulting in suboptimal property prediction and thus results. In order to address this "representation problem", C4XD, using its conformational analysis platform Conformetrix, will provide GTN with world-leading molecular descriptors for use in its in-silico discovery platform. By combining both technologies, the collaboration will aim to unlock new areas of chemical space and identify novel small molecules.

This discovery partnership adds another high value programme to C4XD's portfolio. It represents continued progress against C4XD's strategy of accessing cutting-edge, high impact technologies through productive partnerships that will accelerate growth of its diversified portfolio of commercially attractive assets.

Dr Craig Fox, CSO of C4X Discovery, said: "Strategic partnerships represent a critical component of our strategy and we are delighted to be collaborating with the team at GTN on this exciting project. Leveraging the clear synergies that exist between our Conformetrix platform and GTN's in-silico discovery technology, we aim to solve the representation problem and enable pioneering research into unexplored chemical space against a commercially attractive neurodegeneration target. We are looking forward to seeing the results of this project."

Noor Shaker, CEO of GTN, said: "We are excited to be working with C4XD. This partnership is a great milestone for GTN as we expand the capabilities of our proprietary quantum machine learning platform. GTN will deploy its platform to discover novel, high quality chemicals and accelerate the discovery process. GTN's unique approach to quantum representation of molecules and advance machine learning plays very nicely with C4XD's molecular descriptors. It is a key component of GTN's strategy to form close collaborations with biotechs and pharmaceutical companies and we hope that this is the start of a growing relationship with C4XD. We are looking forward to a productive collaboration with C4XD."

-ENDS-

For further information, please contact:

C4X Discovery Holdings plc

Clive Dix, Chief Executive Officer                                                                                             [phone]

GTN Ltd

Noor Shaker, Chief Executive Officer                                                                                      [phone]

Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited (NOMAD and Broker)                                                      [phone]

Freddy Crossley, Emma Earl (Corporate Finance)             

James Stearns (Corporate Broking)                                                                        

Consilium Strategic Communications

Mary-Jane Elliott, Chris Gardner, Matthew Neal                                                                [phone]

About C4X Discovery

C4X Discovery aims to become the world's most productive drug discovery engine by exploiting cutting edge technologies to design and create best-in-class small-molecule candidates targeting a range of high value therapeutic areas. The company's goal is to drive returns through early-stage revenue-generating deals with the pharmaceutical industry.

C4X Discovery has a state-of-the-art suite of proprietary technologies across the drug discovery process. The company's innovative DNA-based target identification platform (Taxonomy3®) utilises human genetic datasets to identify novel patient-specific targets leading to greater discovery productivity and increased probability of clinical success. This is complemented by C4XD's novel drug design platform which comprises two innovative chemistry technologies, Conformetrix and Molplex, that combine 4D molecular shape analyses (based on experimental data) with best-in-class computational chemistry. This provides new and unprecedented insight into the behaviour of drug molecules, enabling the production of potent selective compounds faster and more cost effectively than the industry standard.

C4X Discovery is advancing its in-house pipeline that is primarily focused on the high value therapeutic areas of inflammation, neurodegeneration and cancer (including immuno-oncology) with a number of new drug candidates identified and further progress made towards the pre-clinical licensing discussions. In selecting new targets and executing new drug discovery programmes, C4X Discovery focuses on high-value disease areas that are the subject of significant licensing activity and will continue to also maximise value from opportunistic areas such as addiction and diabetes. The Company recently signed a licensing agreement with Indivior for a pre-clinical addiction programme worth up to $294m.

The Company was founded as a spin-out from the University of Manchester. It has a highly experienced management team and Board who have delivered significant value creation within the healthcare sector historically and have enabled C4XD to reach multiple value inflexion points since IPO. For additional information please go to: www.c4xdiscovery.com

About GTN Ltd

GTN's mission is to be the leader in the discovery of high-quality, novel drug candidates. We are helping pharmaceutical companies accelerate drug discovery and do it more efficiently at a fraction of the cost through our proprietary technology. We are building the software technology to efficiently access the full drug-like space, i.e. 10^60, and to more accurately predict chemical activities. We do this through our advanced technology to simulate, evaluate and search for highly effective small molecule drug candidates. Our patent-pending technology, Generative Tensorial Networks, combines ideas from machine learning and quantum physics in order to provide the most accurate representation of chemicals for predicting ADMET, binding affinity and physchem properties, as well as the most advanced technology for discovery of completely novel compounds.    

GTN received the CogX UK Rising Star award for Outstanding Achievement in Machine Learning handed to the CEO by the British Prime Minister and was recently featured in WIRED magazine. For additional information please go to: www.gtn.ai

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulatory (EU) No596/2014

 

END

 

 

CNTPGGWWGUPRGMR