Abzu and Contera Pharma expand strategic partnership - #BHHMembersInitiatives

BHH member Abzu® and Contera Pharma expand their strategic partnership to add drug-target identification to their seminal RNA- and siRNAs therapeutic design platform. Contera Pharma is a Danish biotech company developing innovative small-molecule and RNA-based therapeutics to address neurological disorders.

Their unique R&D model integrates their team of experienced neuroscience drug hunters with cutting-edge technology, like Abzu’s proprietary discovery engine, the QLattice®, to develop precision medicines. Abzu’s QLattice, a new class of explainable artificial intelligence with recently-patented technology, accelerates scientists’ exploration and understanding of relationships in data. Abzu and Contera Pharma initially collaborated in July 2021 to incorporate the QLattice into an RNA therapeutic design application.

The application designs RNA therapeutics through parallel hypotheses testing of drug targets and individual antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) drug properties. After seeing accelerated progress on two undisclosed therapeutics currently in preclinical testing, Abzu and Contera Pharma agreed to expand their strategic partnership, adding siRNAs and target identification to the platform. "Our expanded strategic partnership is based on a three-pronged approach to strengthen our drug discovery platform: First, we run ASO drug design by automation; second, we will add siRNAs as an RNA therapeutic modality; and third, we identify novel targets with Abzu’s explainable artificial intelligence," says Kenneth Christensen, Chief Scientific Officer of Contera Pharma.

"We want to turbocharge the development of RNA medicines," says Martin Kerr, Head of Business Development and Pharma Partnerships at Abzu. "With Contera Pharma, we’re designing and testing RNA medicines to multiple targets — all at once — which means that we’re breaking new ground faster than anyone else."

Combined, this expanded partnership advances the companies vision to accelerate the drug discovery process by deepening the disease and disease-target understanding and at the same time accelerating rational drug design.

Read more HERE.