- SK chemicals, in collaboration with Standigm, discovers candidates for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and completes patent application
- Expects double benefits of shorter development periods and cost reductions through open innovation
SK chemicals has announced the first achievements of open innovation through collaboration with an AI company.
SK chemicals (CEO Kwang-hyun Jeon) announced on the 7th that it has discovered a rheumatoid arthritis treatment candidate via research collaboration using the AI platform technology of Standigm (CEO Jin-han Kim), and that it has applied for a patent.
SK chemicals established Open Innovation T/F in 2019 and has been pushing for the development of new drugs, founded on its accumulated internal capacities in new drug development and in collaboration with prominent big data research teams and AI companies in Korea, to effectively discover a greater diversity of candidate substances.
Accordingly, in July, it signed a research collaboration agreement for drug development with Standigm, a leader in AI-powered new drug discovery.
Since launching its efforts to discover new treatments for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and rheumatoid arthritis a year ago, SK chemicals has now submitted a patent application for a drug to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The patent application is the first achievement of the research collaboration between SK chemicals and an AI company.
Drug repurposing is a new drug development method that investigates new therapeutic purposes for existing drugs which have already been in use or developed for the treatment of a specific disease. Applying AI technology to the drug repurposing method allows for quick and efficient discovery of mechanisms for which the drug can show efficacy based on large scale clinical data.
This is the reason why drug repurposing using AI technology is gaining popularity in the field of drug development today. In particular, the technology is focusing on the development of a treatment for COVID-19.
The substance for rheumatoid arthritis, discovered through drug repurposing, already has a confirmed safety profile, leading to industry evaluations that the method led to a quicker and more efficient form of discovery than conventional methods.
The two companies plan on continuing their research collaboration on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and rheumatoid arthritis to discover additional drug candidates.
Standigm CEO Jin-han Kim said, “This patent is just the beginning of many results expected from our extended collaboration. We look forward to announcing AI-developed new drug candidates as well as more AI-driven repurposed drug candidates.”
SK chemicals Jeong-hoon Kim said, "SK chemicals' new drug development capabilities have been further improved by combining outside advanced AI technology," and “We will continue to develop new drugs for intractable diseases through open innovation with companies and research centers in various fields.”
Meanwhile, SK Chemicals signed research collaboration agreements with AI companies Deargen and Dr. Noah Biotech last year. In addition, in line with the “Deep Change” strategy within the SK group, SK C&C is also spurring research on new drug development using AI.