- Strategic collaboration combines Italfarmaco’s leadership in HDAC biology and therapeutic development with VeriSIM Life’s Mechanistic AI drug discovery platform to create differentiated therapeutic assets
SAN FRANCISCO & MILAN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Italfarmaco S.p.A., a global pharmaceutical company with established expertise in histone deacetylase (HDAC) biology and therapeutic development, and VeriSIM Life, an AI-enabled drug discovery and development company, today announced a strategic collaboration to discover and develop novel HDAC-targeted therapeutic assets for neuromuscular, fibrotic, and rare diseases.
The collaboration brings together Italfarmaco’s expertise in HDAC biology, medicinal chemistry, translational science, and clinical development with VeriSIM Life’s proprietary BIOiSIM® and AtlasGEN™ platforms. Together, the companies will discover, design, synthesize, and optimize novel small molecules against a selected HDAC target, using AI-enabled predictive intelligence in drug discovery to prioritize compounds with the strongest potential for successful clinical translation.
Under the terms of the agreement, VeriSIM Life is eligible to receive technology service fees, development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments, and royalties on future commercial products. The collaboration has a total potential value exceeding US $100 million and is structured to create novel therapeutic assets and associated intellectual property.
BIOiSIM evaluates generated molecules across pharmacology, exposure, safety, biomarkers, and patient variability, while AtlasGEN designs novel synthesizable chemical matter. The integrated approach is designed to prioritize molecules not only for target activity, but also for the pharmacological and translational characteristics needed to advance successfully into clinical development.
“Italfarmaco has world-class expertise in HDAC biology and has brought its first HDAC-targeted therapeutic to market,” said Dr. Christian Steinkühler, Chief Scientific Officer of Italfarmaco Group. “This partnership enables us to expand our pipeline into new indications with high unmet needs, including neuromuscular, fibrotic, and rare diseases. By leveraging VeriSIM Life’s AI-enabled mechanistic reasoning platform, we have an opportunity to identify differentiated therapeutic candidates, make more informed decisions earlier in discovery, and unlock the broader potential of HDAC-based medicines.”
“The future of drug discovery won't be defined by how many molecules we can generate. It will be defined by how confidently we can predict which ones become medicines,” said Dr. Jo Varshney, Founder and CEO of VeriSIM Life. “Together with Italfarmaco, we're combining HDAC biology with AI-enabled mechanistic reasoning to design differentiated therapeutic assets with clinical translation and patient benefit in mind from the first design cycle.”
The partnership advances VeriSIM Life’s strategy of creating proprietary therapeutic assets with pharmaceutical partners while participating in their long-term value. It also supports Italfarmaco’s continued expansion of its HDAC discovery pipeline through next-generation computational and generative technologies.
About Italfarmaco
Founded in 1938 in Milan, Italy, Italfarmaco is a private global pharmaceutical company that has led the successful development and approval of many pharmaceutical products around the world. The Italfarmaco group has operations in more than 90 countries through directly controlled or affiliated companies. The company is a leader in pharmaceutical research, product development, production and commercialisation with proven success in many therapeutic areas including immuno-oncology, gynaecology, neurology, cardiovascular disease and rare diseases. Italfarmaco's rare disease unit includes programmes in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Becker muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and polycythemia vera. For more information visit www.italfarmaco.com.
About VeriSIM Life
VeriSIM Life is an end-to-end AI-enabled drug discovery and development company transforming how new medicines are discovered and advanced through AI-enabled mechanistic reasoning. Its proprietary BIOiSIM platform integrates artificial intelligence, mechanistic biology, and translational science to evaluate efficacy, safety, pharmacokinetics, biomarkers, and clinical translation, while AtlasGEN generates and optimizes novel and synthesizable therapeutic candidates guided by these insights. Together, the platforms reduce uncertainty, improve development efficiency, and enable the creation of differentiated therapeutic assets from discovery through clinical development.
Contacts
Italfarmaco enquiries:
Anja Heuer / Adolfo Luna |+49 (0) 151 106 199 05 |italfarmaco@trophic.eu
