Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited and DarwinHealth announced they have entered into a research agreement providing Daiichi Sankyo with exclusive access to DarwinHealth’s proprietary novel cancer target database in order to identify potential new targets for cancer drug development.   

DarwinHealth’s proprietary database and technology were created to identify critical mechanisms linked to tumour dependencies and maintenance beyond genetic mutations, and include information on Master Regulators of specific tumour subtypes, as well as direct upstream modulators (both necessary for cancer cell maintenance) across more than 35 tumour and 90 tumour subtypes.

“The purpose of this agreement is to identify novel, high-value cancer targets that can subsequently be prioritized and undergo rigorous experimental validation to drive drug development for a new generation of anti-cancer therapies that would be designed, developed, and owned by Daiichi Sankyo,” said Gideon Bosker, MD, chief executive officer, DarwinHealth.

DarwinHealth will receive an upfront payment and has the potential to receive development and commercialization milestone payments should specified events occur relating to DarwinHealth’s novel cancer targets. Daiichi Sankyo will receive exclusive access to DarwinHealth’s novel cancer target database for a predetermined amount of time with an option to extend. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“We believe that the combination of both molecular and computational techniques used by DarwinHealth coupled with the expertise of our scientists in designing small molecules and antibodies may offer a disruptive approach to accelerating the discovery of precision-medicine cancer compounds,” said Antoine Yver, MD, MSc, executive vice president and global head, oncology research and development, Daiichi Sankyo. “This new agreement is a natural next step in expanding our current ongoing translational research collaboration and we look forward to working with DarwinHealth to further science to create meaningful treatments for patients with cancer.”

“The novel cancer targets will be selected and prioritized based on their role as either Master Regulators (MRs) or their most specific Master Regulator Upstream Modulators (MRUMs) within a tumour-specific checkpoint module,” said Professor Andrea Califano, Co-Founder and Chairman of Scientific and Medical Advisory Board, DarwinHealth. “Therefore, they are expected to represent highly valuable targets for anti-tumour therapy, cancer drug design, and preclinical development.”

 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 last 13 years and is exclusively licensed from Columbia University.