Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a Japanese pharmaceutical company, and twoXAR, Inc., an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven biopharmaceutical company, have signed a drug discovery research collaboration to jointly discover and develop novel treatments to address unmet medical needs in a specific neurological disease.
 
Under the agreement, twoXAR will use its AI technology to identify a set of lead compounds which demonstrate a novel mechanism of action and will be further optimized by Ono for potential drug candidates. The companies will select several compounds with their hypotheses from this set to test in further validation studies. Ono will retain exclusive rights to develop and commercialize the compounds, and in return, twoXAR will receive research and license fees from Ono as well as development and sales milestones.
 
“As we expand our portfolio of drug discovery programs through collaborations with experienced drug development teams, we are honored to enter this collaboration with Ono Pharmaceutical. Ono has a rich history in drug development, and our partnership represents their continual commitment to improve efficiency in R&D,” said Andrew A. Radin, Co-Founder and chief executive officer of twoXAR. “twoXAR continues to grow its drug development partnerships internationally and this collaboration with Ono represents our second with a globally-operating, Japan-headquartered partner.”
 
“We highly value twoXAR’s approach to help drug discovery because it enables rapid identification and in vitro and in vivo efficacy validation of new lead compounds,” said Toichi Takino, corporate officer executive director, Discovery & Research. “By combining Ono’s drug discovery experience and twoXAR’s AI technology, we believe that we can increase the speed and probability of success in discovering and developing innovative first-in-class drugs to expand our neurological disease pipeline.”