- Strategic partnership includes co-development of
patient-derived xenograft (PDX) Digital Twins for in vivo oncology
research
- Charles River to make an equity investment in Aitia as part of
the agreement
Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE: CRL) and
Aitia, a leader in the application of Causal AI and Digital Twins,
today announced a strategic agreement that gives Aitia access to
Logica™, Charles River’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered drug
solution platform, for the optimized discovery and early
development of multiple therapeutic programs for neurodegenerative
disease and oncology.
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the full release here:
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Under the terms of the agreement, Aitia will deploy Logica
across their portfolio of novel drug targets with the aim of
creating and advancing drug candidates for neurological
indications, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s
diseases and cancers, including prostate cancer and multiple
myeloma. According to the World Health Organization (WHO),
Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, affects
33 million people globally, while Parkinson’s disease (PD) impacts
8.5 million, and it is estimated that Huntington’s disease (HD)
affects approximatively 1 in 10,000 people worldwide. There are
currently no known cures for these diseases, and the prevalence of
all three diseases rises year-over-year. In the field of oncology,
there are approximately 1.4 million new cases of prostate cancer
and 160,000 new cases of multiple myeloma reported globally each
year. Each cancer presents unique challenges with acquired
resistance to novel therapies and corresponding rates of overall
survival.
“Unraveling the complex genetic and molecular circuitry of
neurodegenerative disorders is critical to the discovery of
treatments that significantly slow or reverse these devastating
diseases,” said Colin Hill, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder
of Aitia. “I do not believe we will get there without the insights
from our Digital Twins, which now combined with the advantages of
Logica, positions Aitia to rapidly translate our discoveries into
novel drug candidates. We are excited to join forces with Charles
River, leveraging their decades of industry expertise in research
to fuel our R&D efforts.”
“Combining Aitia’s Digital Twins with Logica’s next-generation
solution stands to transform the discovery and development of novel
therapeutics for neurological diseases and oncology,” said
Professor Julie Frearson, Ph.D., Corporate Senior Vice President
and Chief Scientific Officer, Charles River. “The research
landscape for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s has moved
slowly in recent years, and we are excited for the impact that this
combined AI solution can deliver to patients.”
Digital Twins: Increasing Translation Through Data
Additionally, Charles River and Aitia have signed a strategic
partnership agreement, focused on the development of a
patient-derived xenograft (PDX) Digital Twin to predict the best
tumor models for in vivo oncology research. The partnership will
combine Charles River’s robust, fully-characterized,
disease-relevant PDX data and expertise with Aitia’s
industry-leading Digital Twin technology to develop PDX Digital
Twins in several cancer types. As part of the partnership, Charles
River has made an equity investment in Aitia.
In drug discovery, Digital Twins enable the accurate simulation
of gene and protein knockdowns at the individual patient level
across patient cohorts to discover and genetically validate novel
drug targets. This concept can be applied in a similar way to
individual tumor types to design more targeted preclinical studies
for oncology research. Digital Twins enable the simulation of
disease progression and drug response for existing drug candidates
to discover biomarkers to better select existing therapies and
effective combination therapies.
The Strength of Logica, an Integrated AI Program In 2022,
Charles River and Valo Health launched Logica, leveraging the
AI-powered Valo Opal Computational Platform™ and Charles River’s
leading preclinical expertise, providing clients with transformed
drug discovery with a single integrated offering seamlessly
translating targets to candidate nomination. Logica is offered as a
fully managed, risk-sharing model, with most of the client’s cost
tied to success.
“Logica has optimized drug discovery,” said Emilio Cordova,
Executive Director, Logica. “Combining laboratory infrastructure,
expert drug hunters, and large-scale compute capabilities, Logica
eliminates whitespace and rapidly delivers results.”
Logica utilizes industry-leading predictive models, chemical
design, and synthesis capabilities, DNA-encoded libraries, in
silico high throughput screening from Valo’s Opal Computational
Platform as well as Charles River’s leading capabilities in all
aspects of discovery optimization including high throughput
screening, medicinal chemistry, ADME, biology, pharmacology, and
ultimately safety testing and IND submission, joining together for
the first time to create a computation-powered, unified
target-to-candidate offering.
Last year, Charles River and Flagship’s Pioneering Medicines
announced an agreement to deploy Logica across a portfolio of
targets with the aim of creating optimized small molecules that
lead to novel therapies for unmet medical needs. More recently,
Charles River and Related Sciences announced a multi-program
collaboration to apply Logica across several previously undrugged
targets.
About Aitia Aitia is the leader in the development and
application of Causal AI and Digital Twins to discover the next
generation of therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and
oncology. By leveraging the convergence of multi-omic patient data,
high-performance computing, and causal learning and AI, Aitia is
revealing the hidden circuitry of human biology to identify novel
targets driving disease and focused patient recruitment for
clinical development. Aitia has translated those insights into its
Gemini Digital Twins (computational representations of disease),
which the company is using to discover new breakthrough therapies.
Aitia’s partners include six of the top ten pharmaceutical
companies, leading academic research and medical centers, medical
societies, leading multi-omic data companies, and patient advocacy
groups globally. For more information, please visit
www.aitiabio.com.
About Valo Health Valo Health, Inc is a technology
company focused on utilizing large scale data and AI-driven
computation to discover and develop therapeutics. Valo aims to
fully integrate human-centric data across the entire drug
development life cycle into a single unified architecture, thereby
accelerating the discovery and development of life-changing drugs
while simultaneously reducing costs, time, and failure rates. The
company’s Opal Computational Platform™ is an end-to-end drug
discovery and development platform with a unified architecture
designed to transform data into valuable insights that may
accelerate discoveries and enable Valo to advance a robust pipeline
of programs, initially focused on cardiovascular metabolic renal,
oncology, and neurodegenerative disease. Founded by Flagship
Pioneering and headquartered in Boston, MA, Valo also has offices
in Lexington, MA, and New York, NY. To learn more, visit
valohealth.com.
About Charles River Charles River provides essential
products and services to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology
companies, government agencies and leading academic institutions
around the globe accelerate their research and drug development
efforts. Our dedicated employees are focused on providing clients
with exactly what they need to improve and expedite the discovery,
early-stage development and safe manufacture of new therapies for
the patients who need them. To learn more about our unique
portfolio and breadth of services, visit www.criver.com.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231113943756/en/
Charles River Investor Contact: Todd Spencer Corporate
Vice President, Investor Relations +1-781-222-6455
todd.spencer@crl.com
Charles River Media Contact: Amy Cianciaruso Corporate
Vice President & Chief Communications Officer +1-781-222-6168
amy.cianciaruso@crl.com
Valo Health Media Contact: Kate Clayton Associate
Director, Corporate Communications kclayton@valohealth.com
Aitia Media Contact: Zena Sfeir Vice President, Marketing
+1-617-374-2300 zsfeir@aitiabio.com
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