SHENZHEN, China, Nov. 22, 2023 – Today, XtalPi announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Experimental Drug Development Centre (EDDC), Singapore’s national drug discovery and development platform hosted by A*STAR, for the expansion of their collaboration to encompass potential projects that will focus on the application of automated synthesis solutions and large language models in pharmaceutical research. Building upon an ongoing collaboration that was initiated in December 2022 to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to develop targeted therapies for non-small cell lung cancer, the new collaboration aims to expedite the conversion of scientific discoveries into robust pipeline assets by advancing the domain of intelligent automated pharmaceutical research.
Under the MOU, the two parties will explore collaborations in the fields of automated chemical compound synthesis and AI-driven drug discovery, including the application of XtalPi’s robotics and AI-driven drug design capabilities in EDDC’s R&D, such as automated library synthesis and other drug chemical synthesis services. XtalPi’s array of automated workstations can provide significant remote support to EDDC’s R&D efforts, generating large-scale, high-quality data that can enhance EDDC’s current drug development processes. By developing cutting-edge computational tools and industry practices, the partners aim to leverage robotics and AI in therapeutic discovery.
XtalPi and EDDC will also look into jointly exploring the potential of advanced AI models, including large language models (LLM), to drive biopharmaceutical innovation. The partners aim to extract valuable insights and develop robust methodologies in areas such as target discovery and molecular design by integrating high-throughput automated experiments, cellular phenotypes, and multi-omics data. This concerted effort will capitalize on XtalPi’s expertise in artificial intelligence and EDDC’s wealth of R&D data and experience in preclinical and clinical research.
Dr. Liang Gu, XtalPi’s Chief Technology Officer, remarked, “As an innovative platform company, XtalPi offers a digital twin of AI and robotics that is uniquely equipped to take on the diverse research challenges at EDDC, whose robust pipeline requires complex and explorative experiments that will continue to evolve as projects progress and data accumulates, establishing crucial blueprints for driving scientific research with advanced AI models including LLM. Together, we hope to further enhance EDDC’s research throughput, efficiency, and success rate, expediting the translation of meaningful research into impactful medicines that benefit patients in Asia and around the world.”
Dr Hao Weidong, Chief Scientific Officer of EDDC said, “We are thrilled to embark on this journey with XtalPi to enhance our industry know-how in drug discovery and development with XtalPi’s automation resources and AI capabilities. Through this partnership, we aim to further accelerate the drug discovery process at EDDC and progress towards our goal of swiftly delivering novel therapies for patients worldwide.”
