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Parallel Bio Raises $21 Million Series A to Revolutionize Drug Discovery with Human Organoid Platform

AIDrug Discovery
  • Parallel Bio secured $21 million in Series A funding led by AIX Ventures to advance its human-first drug discovery platform that uses organoids and AI to replicate the human immune system.
  • The company has partnered with eight pharmaceutical companies, including three Fortune 500 firms, to test over 50 drugs and immunotherapies using its organoid-based platform.
  • Centivax completed the first preclinical study on the platform for its universal flu vaccine candidate, demonstrating broad immune responses in human organoids derived from flu-exposed patients.
  • The platform aims to address the 95% failure rate of drugs in human trials despite success in animal studies by starting with true-to-life human models from the beginning.

BullFrog AI Partners with Sygnature Discovery to Expand AI-Driven Drug Discovery Platform Access

AIDrug Discovery
  • BullFrog AI announced a strategic collaboration with UK-based CRO Sygnature Discovery to introduce its AI-driven BullFrog Data Networks™ platform to global biopharma clients.
  • The partnership is expected to generate $15-30 million in revenue for BullFrog AI through 2028 while accelerating brand recognition and user adoption.
  • BullFrog Data Networks™ supports critical drug discovery applications including target identification, mechanism-of-action studies, patient stratification, and clinical trial optimization.
  • The collaboration specifically targets small to mid-sized biopharma companies, a segment often underserved by existing bioinformatics solutions.

ImmunoPrecise's AI-Designed GLP-1 Peptides Outperform Semaglutide in Receptor Activation Studies

AIDrug Discovery
  • ImmunoPrecise Antibodies announced that its AI-designed GLP-1 receptor agonist peptides achieved comparable or superior receptor activation to Semaglutide in independent third-party in vitro studies.
  • Two lead peptide candidates outperformed or matched Semaglutide under controlled assay conditions, with sequences rationally engineered using the company's proprietary HYFT technology for improved stability and peptidase resistance.
  • The breakthrough validates IPA's LENSai platform and demonstrates that AI can generate functionally validated peptide drugs with potential for rapid expansion into adjacent therapeutic areas.
  • The company is now considering two preclinical development paths including injectable delivery studies and non-invasive delivery strategies such as transdermal patches and nucleic acid-based delivery systems.

Juvena Therapeutics Partners with Eli Lilly in AI-Driven Muscle Health Drug Discovery Collaboration

AIDrug Discovery
  • Juvena Therapeutics has entered a global licensing and multi-target research collaboration with Eli Lilly to discover and develop drug candidates that improve muscle health and body composition.
  • The partnership will leverage JuvNET, the world's first fully integrated AI-enabled screening platform for mapping therapeutic potential of stem cell-secreted proteins.
  • Under the agreement, Juvena will receive upfront payment, equity investment, and potential milestone payments while granting Lilly exclusive licenses to identified lead candidates.
  • The collaboration aims to address obesity, which affects one in eight people globally, by combining Lilly's metabolic disease expertise with Juvena's AI platform and stem-cell protein library.

Sofinnova Partners and NVIDIA Launch AI Infrastructure Partnership to Accelerate European Life Sciences Innovation

AIDrug DiscoveryPrecision Medicine
  • Sofinnova Partners, a leading European life sciences venture capital firm, has partnered with NVIDIA to provide GPU credits and high-performance AI infrastructure to its portfolio companies through NVIDIA DGX Cloud Lepton.
  • Four promising European digital medicine startups—BioCorteX, Bioptimus, Cure51, and Latent Labs—are among the first cohort to gain access to NVIDIA's computational resources, enabling faster biological data processing and model development.
  • Cure51 demonstrated the partnership's potential by achieving up to 17x faster genomic processing and more than 2x cost savings using NVIDIA's GPU-accelerated genomics toolkit compared to traditional CPU methods.
  • The collaboration aims to position Europe at the forefront of AI-driven drug discovery by providing startups with computational power comparable to Silicon Valley tech giants in the $100B+ life sciences market.

Bayer and Broad Institute Extend Cardiovascular Research Partnership Through 2030

Precision MedicineDrug Discovery
  • Bayer and the Broad Institute have extended their decade-long cardiovascular research collaboration by an additional five years, focusing on precision cardiology target identification and novel therapeutic approaches.
  • The partnership has already yielded clinical progress with Bayer's GIRK4 inhibitor entering Phase I trials in May 2025 for atrial fibrillation treatment.
  • Current research efforts target specific cardiovascular conditions including dilated cardiomyopathy, leveraging genomics expertise and human cardiomyocyte platforms for drug discovery.
  • The collaboration combines Broad Institute's genomics capabilities with Bayer's drug discovery experience to address significant unmet medical needs in cardiovascular diseases.

Solvonis Therapeutics Launches AI-Powered CNS Drug Discovery Platform for Depression and Addiction

AIDrug Discovery
  • Solvonis Therapeutics has initiated an artificial intelligence-supported drug discovery programme targeting its proprietary central nervous system compound library acquired through the Awakn Life Sciences acquisition.
  • The AI platform will focus on data-driven asset prioritisation and structure-activity relationship analysis to accelerate identification of development candidates for depression and stimulant use disorders.
  • Under Professor David Nutt's scientific leadership, the programme complements Solvonis' existing clinical pipeline, which includes Phase 3 trials for alcohol use disorder affecting over 80 million people across the UK, US, and EU4.
  • The initiative represents a strategic expansion into earlier-stage innovation while maintaining focus on high-burden neuropsychiatric conditions with significant unmet medical need.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical Partners with Salipro Biotech to Target Challenging Membrane Proteins for Drug Discovery

Drug DiscoveryOrphan Drug
  • Daewoong Pharmaceutical has entered into a strategic research collaboration with Swedish biotech Salipro Biotech to develop novel small molecule therapeutics targeting challenging membrane proteins.
  • The partnership provides Daewoong access to Salipro's proprietary platform technology that stabilizes membrane proteins in their native forms, addressing a major barrier in drug discovery.
  • This marks Salipro's first collaboration with a Korean company, following previous partnerships with major pharmaceutical firms including Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi, and Sumitomo.
  • Membrane proteins account for over 60 percent of known drug targets but have been difficult to research due to their structural instability in laboratory conditions.

Antibiotic Ciprofloxacin Shows Novel ACE Inhibition Mechanism, Opening Path to Improved Hypertension Therapies

Drug Discovery
  • UK and South African researchers discovered that the antibiotic ciprofloxacin blocks the ACE enzyme through a novel allosteric mechanism, binding to a different site than traditional ACE inhibitors.
  • The discovery offers potential for developing next-generation ACE inhibitors with fewer side effects, addressing limitations of current medications that affect multiple bodily processes.
  • While ciprofloxacin itself binds too weakly for therapeutic use, it serves as a template for designing more targeted cardiovascular drugs with improved safety profiles.
  • The research team plans to screen chemical analogues of ciprofloxacin to optimize binding and specificity for this new class of inhibitors.

Nicoya Lifesciences Acquires Applied Photophysics to Create Integrated Biologics Characterization Platform

Drug Discovery
  • Nicoya Lifesciences has acquired UK-based Applied Photophysics, a 50-year-old provider of biophysical characterization instrumentation, to create a comprehensive biologics analysis platform.
  • The acquisition is expected to immediately double Nicoya's annual revenue, triple its customer base, and establish a foundation for 25% projected organic growth.
  • The combined platform integrates Surface Plasmon Resonance systems with Circular Dichroism, nanoDSF, and stopped-flow technologies to provide complete characterization of complex biologics from a single provider.
  • Applied Photophysics' UK headquarters will become Nicoya's European operational hub, significantly expanding the company's global reach and customer support capabilities.

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