Flagship Pioneering announced an agreement between Pioneering Medicines, Flagship’s in-house drug discovery and development unit, and Pfizer, to discover compounds which may lead to the development of next-generation therapeutics for autoimmune diseases.
The collaboration will engage Charles River to utilize Logica, a unique platform offering from Valo Health, a Flagship-founded company, to identify advanceable small molecule leads. Logica translates biological insights into optimized preclinical assets by leveraging Valo Health’s AI-powered Opal Computational Platform and Charles River’s leading drug discovery expertise.
“Autoimmune diseases impose a substantial health burden on patients, and ongoing unmet need in the management of these conditions is driving a strong demand for more effective, safer and more personalized treatment options,” said Paul Biondi, President, Pioneering Medicines, and Managing Partner, Flagship Pioneering. “Through the power of our unique partnership model with Pfizer, we will leverage Logica to help address this gap with a promising novel approach to identifying disease-modifying candidate molecules that could positively impact the current treatment landscape for these complex and diverse conditions.”
This agreement represents the sixth collaboration signed under the broader strategic partnership between Flagship Pioneering and Pfizer to create a new pipeline of innovative assets, following programs announced with Flagship companies ProFound Therapeutics, Quotient Therapeutics, Montai Therapeutics, and Ampersand Biomedicines.
“We are excited to bring the power of the Logica platform – powered by Valo and Charles River – to discover potential investigational therapies for patients suffering from autoimmune diseases,” said Professor Julie Frearson, Ph.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Charles River. “Logica’s proprietary AI small molecule drug discovery platform is revolutionizing the drug discovery process, and we look forward to working with the joint team at Pioneering Medicines and Pfizer to accelerate understanding of the molecular pathways involved in these diseases to develop more targeted and effective therapies for patients.”