Ono Pharmaceutical and twoXAR Announce Drug Discovery Research Collaboration

OSAKA, Japan & MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a Japanese pharmaceutical research and development company, and twoXAR, Inc., an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven biopharmaceutical company, announced today that the companies have signed a drug discovery research collaboration to jointly discover and develop novel, efficacious treatments to address unmet medical needs in a specific neurological disease.

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Under the agreement, twoXAR will use its proprietary 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. twoXAR will also predict a set of hypotheses which suggest the efficacy and safety of such lead compounds for the therapy. twoXAR and Ono 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 obtained through this collaboration throughout the world, 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,” stated Andrew A. Radin, Co-Founder and CEO 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.”

About twoXAR

twoXAR is an artificial intelligence-driven biopharmaceutical company that leverages its computational platform to identify promising drug candidates, de-risk the opportunities through preclinical studies, and progress drug product candidates into the clinic through industry partnerships. Based in Mountain View, California, the twoXAR team includes experts in drug discovery and development, biomedical informatics, computational biology, data science and software development. Investors in twoXAR include SoftBank Ventures, the Andreessen Horowitz Bio Fund, OS Fund, CLI Ventures, and the Stanford-StartX Fund. For more information, please visit www.twoXAR.com.

About Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., headquartered in Osaka, Japan, is an R&D-oriented pharmaceutical company committed to create innovative medicines in specific areas. It focuses especially on the oncology and diabetes areas. For more information, please visit the company’s website at http://www.ono.co.jp/eng/index.html.

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