NEW YORK, May 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- DarwinHealth, a
New York City-based biotechnology
company, today announced a scientific research collaboration with
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY). The research
collaboration, the Novel Cancer Target Initiative (NCTI),
employs quantitative systems biology-based algorithms, proprietary
databases, and validated technologies to identify novel cancer
targets (NCTs) across a range of tumor subtypes.
The methodology underpinning the NCTI is based on an
understanding of critical mechanisms linked to tumor dependencies
and maintenance beyond genetic mutations. To facilitate the
discovery of NCTs, DarwinHealth will provide Bristol Myers Squibb
proprietary information residing in its drug databases, including
tumor context-specific analyses of Master Regulators of distinct
tumor subtypes, as well as direct upstream
modulators.
"The collaboration is focused on identifying novel, high-value
cancer targets across a range of pre-selected tumor subtypes, with
an eye towards identifying novel targets that are recurrent among
different types of cancer, leading to the design and development of
drugs with multi-subtype indications," said Gideon Bosker, MD, Chief Executive Officer,
DarwinHealth. "Once identified and prioritized, these targets
can undergo rigorous experimental validation to drive drug
development for a new generation of anti-cancer therapies that
could be developed by Bristol Myers Squibb."
"The novel cancer targets will be selected and prioritized based
on their role as either Master Regulators (MRs) or Master Regulator
Upstream Modulators (MRUMs) within the Tumor Checkpoint module of a
specific human malignancy," said Professor Andrea Califano, Chair, Department of Systems
Biology, Columbia University, and
Co-Founder and Chairman of Scientific and Medical Advisory Board,
DarwinHealth. "We believe that the mechanism-based insights,
as provided by DarwinHealth's precision oncology-focused systems
biology platforms, can substantially accelerate the development of
drugs targeting non-oncogene dependencies that underpin and drive
key cancer hallmarks."
The NCTI agreement represents an important extension and
scientific leveraging of the ongoing Compound-2-Clinic (C2C)
multi-year collaboration initiated with Celgene on August 28, 2019, which aims to assess,
characterize, and prioritize for clinical development and
experimental validation the oncology-relevant bioactivity of a
pre-specified library of Bristol Myers Squibb compounds.
As part of the NCTI collaboration, DarwinHealth will receive an
upfront payment and has the potential to receive development and
commercialization milestone payments.
About DarwinHealth
DarwinHealth: Precision Therapeutics for Cancer Medicine is
a "frontiers of cancer," technology-focused company, co-founded by
CEO Gideon Bosker, MD, and Professor
Andrea Califano, Clyde and Helen Wu
Professor of Chemical Systems Biology and Chair, Department of
Systems Biology at Columbia University.
The company's technology was developed by the Califano lab over the
past 14 years and is exclusively licensed from Columbia
University.
DarwinHealth utilizes proprietary, systems biology algorithms to
match virtually every cancer patient with the drugs and drug
combinations that are most likely to produce a successful treatment
outcome. "Conversely, these same algorithms also can prioritize
investigational drugs and compound combinations of unknown
potential against a full spectrum of human malignancies, as well as
novel cancer targets," explained Dr. Bosker, "which make them
invaluable for pharmaceutical companies seeking to both optimize
their compound pipelines and discover mechanistically actionable,
novel cancer targets and compound-tumor alignments."
DarwinHealth's mission statement is to deploy novel technologies
rooted in systems biology to improve clinical outcomes of cancer
treatment. Its core technology, the VIPER algorithm, can identify
tightly knit modules of master regulator proteins that represent a
new class of actionable therapeutic targets and predictive
biomarkers in cancer. The methodology is applied along two
complementary axes: First, DarwinHealth's technologies support the
systematic identification and validation of druggable targets
at a more foundational, deep state of the cancer cell's regulatory
logic so we and our scientific partners can exploit next generation
actionability based on fundamental and more universal tumor
dependencies and mechanisms. Second, from a drug development and
discovery perspective, the same technologies capable of identifying
potentially druggable novel targets based on master regulators, and
upstream modulators of those targets. This is where the
DarwinHealth oncotectural approach, with its emphasis on
elucidating and targeting tumor checkpoints, provides its most
important solutions and repositioning roadmaps for advancing
precision-focused cancer drug discovery and therapeutics.
The proprietary, precision medicine-based methods employed by
DarwinHealth are supported by a deep body of scientific literature
authored by its scientific leadership, including DarwinHealth CSO,
Mariano Alvarez, PhD, who
co-developed the company's critical computational infrastructure.
These proprietary strategies leverage the ability to
reverse-engineer and analyze the genome-wide regulatory and
signaling logic of the cancer cell, by integrating data
from in silico, in vitro, and in
vivo assays. This provides a fully integrated drug
characterization and discovery platform designed to elucidate,
accelerate, and validate precise developmental trajectories for
pharmaceutical assets, so their full clinical and commercial
potential can be realized. For more information, please visit:
www.DarwinHealth.com.
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