ex scientia Ltd. Reaches First Delivery Milestone In Collaboration With Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd.

DUNDEE, Scotland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ex scientia Ltd. is pleased to announce the achievement of delivering its first advanced molecule that fits the development quality criteria requested by Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd. after the first year of their collaboration.

“Working with ex scientia has been transformative, enabling us to progress projects far faster than had previously been possible”

ex scientia and Sumitomo Dainippon researchers are working in partnership to deliver novel multi-target small molecules that fulfil demanding selectivity and development criteria and have potential to deliver enhanced therapeutic performance in the treatment of psychiatric diseases.

The first compound passed over to Sumitomo Dainippon for further internal development is a bispecific, dual-agonist compound that selectively activates two GPCR receptors from two distinct families. The accelerated project delivered the molecule that fulfilled development quality criteria in only 12 months. Starting from a product concept, fewer than 400 compounds needed to be synthesized to identify molecules that match the required development criteria. A key part of this success was a productive collaboration between ex scientia’s automated drug design system and Sumitomo Dainippon’s researchers, who were able to rapidly synthesize and assay small batches of compounds so that ex scientia could in turn refine the models developed and evolve the designs.

The achievement highlights ex scientia’s capability in delivering development quality molecules, with complex target product profiles. The significant efficiency and productivity gains demonstrated in the collaboration are made possible through the application of ex scientia’s advanced design algorithms.

Dr. Daisuke Tanaka, who led Sumitomo Dainippon’s chemistry team said “Working with ex scientia has been transformative, enabling us to progress projects far faster than had previously been possible”. Dr. Isao Shimizu, Director of Drug Development Research Laboratories of Sumitomo Dainippon added, “This first delivery as well as other ongoing work for new projects by ex scientia are providing exciting productivity and efficiency gains for discovery research that could bring wide-reaching benefits”.

Prof Andrew Hopkins, CEO said, “We are delighted to demonstrate the potential of ex scientia’s technology on a complete end-to-end project for a novel, bispecific molecule. The achievement is a significant demonstration of the innovative power of our platform to create value. Success in this project can be attributed to two key factors; the expertise of ex scientia in proposing the right molecules to synthesize and the capabilities of Sumitomo Dainippon researchers to rapidly make and assay compounds to feed back into our active learning systems.

About ex scientia Ltd.

ex scientia Ltd. is a privately owned company developing new medicines for a wide range of human diseases where improved efficacy is required. ex scientia is the first company to develop a systematic algorithmic discovery platform to automatically design molecules to complex target product profiles. ex scientia has successfully applied its algorithm-driven design principles to developed novel molecules with complex bispecifics, polypharmacology and phenotypic product profiles. Adopting this strategy increases the efficiency and effectiveness of drug discovery. As the industry pioneer of automated drug design, ex scientia aims to create exceptional value for its partners, by delivering effective treatments to the clinic.

About Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd.

Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma is a top-ten listed pharmaceutical company in Japan. Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma aims to produce innovative pharmaceutical products in the Psychiatry & Neurology area and the Oncology area, which have been designated as the focus therapeutic areas. Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma is based on the merger in 2005 between Dainippon Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. Today, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma has about 7,000 employees worldwide. Additional information about Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma is available through its corporate website at www.ds-pharma.com.