Artificial intelligence (AI) drug development corporations Galux said on the 18th that it signed a joint research agreement with C. H. Boehringer Sohn AG & Co. KG to use AI-based protein design technology. This is the first time a domestic AI protein design corporations has launched joint research with a global big pharmaceutical company.
The joint research will focus on verifying whether proteins can be implemented from the initial design stage by using Galux's protein design platform "GaluxDesign." It is a process to check whether AI can newly design proteins to meet required functions that were difficult to secure with existing methods.
GaluxDesign is an AI-based protein design platform that can rapidly derive drug candidates by precisely designing interactions between therapeutic targets and antibodies at the molecular level.
In fact, Galux has successfully designed a variety of antibody proteins anew among cases disclosed so far. Previously reported antibodies showed binding affinity at the nanomole (nmol) level, which is one-billionth of 1 mole (mol), a unit indicating the concentration of a substance, but the most potent candidate among the antibodies designed by Galux bound to antigens even at a picomole (pmol) concentration, which is one-thousandth of a nanomole and one-trillionth of 1 mole.
Recently, with only about 50 small-scale designs per target, more than 30% of binding antibodies were secured. The case demonstrated that AI can precisely derive high-quality antibodies in a short period, and it is evaluated as top-tier among "de novo" antibody design results that design entirely new proteins from scratch without referring to existing protein structures.
Galux is corporations founded by Seok Chaok, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Seoul National University who has studied protein structure prediction technology for more than 20 years. Galux and C. H. Boehringer Sohn AG & Co. KG plan to discuss ways to expand the scope of cooperation in the future based on the technological potential confirmed through this joint research.
Galux CEO Seok Chaok said, "It is very meaningful to proceed with research cooperation with C. H. Boehringer Sohn AG & Co. KG for new drug development," and added, "Through this collaboration, we will be able to clearly demonstrate Galux's technological capabilities to design proteins from scratch with AI that have the desired functions."