twoXAR Receives $225K Phase I SBIR Grant for Pancreatic Cancer Drug Discovery

November 28, 2018 |

2 min read

Identifying novel PDAC candidates using a computational approach

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- twoXAR, Inc., an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven biopharmaceutical company, today announced it has received a $225,030 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The one-year award will fund a program for twoXAR to use its AI-driven platform to identify and validate new, first-in-class drug candidates for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) that could improve patient survival outcomes.

PDAC is currently the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States and is expected to be the second leading cause of cancer-related death by 2030¹. PDAC patients have a median survival of less than six months partly due to early metastasis, low immunogenicity, and poor response to cytotoxic agents². Few effective treatments exist for PDAC, and the disease is known to become resistant to current lines of therapy.

In this Phase I grant, twoXAR will use its computational platform to identify drug candidates predicted to be efficacious for PDAC. The efficacy of these compounds will be evaluated using in vitro and in vivo preclinical assays, with the goal of developing and advancing a lead candidate for clinical development. PDAC is one of many active programs in twoXAR’s portfolio.

“We are honored to be awarded this SBIR grant and we appreciate the support from the National Cancer Institute,” said Andrew A. Radin, Co-Founder and CEO of twoXAR. “This program is an opportunity to showcase twoXAR’s ability to rapidly and efficiently identify lead compounds for the treatment of diseases with serious unmet medical need such as PDAC. Our technology is unique in that it can leverage massive amounts of existing real-world data to more holistically find better treatments for patients.”

The content of this press release is solely the responsibility of twoXAR, Inc. and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. This press release discusses a project that will be supported by National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under award number R43 CA236164-01.

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.

¹ Chiaravalli M et al. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: State-of-the-art 2017 and new therapeutic strategies. Cancer Treatment Reviews. 2017;60:32-43.

²Luchini C et al. Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma and Its Variants. Surg Pathol Clin. 2016;9(4):547-60.