Orion Biotechnology Canada, Peptilogics enter research and development collaboration

Orion Biotechnology Canada is a drug discovery company targeting earlier undruggable GPCRs.

A biotech firm, Peptilogics is into engineering peptide therapeutics by bringing together computation and biology to boost treatment for patients with life-threatening diseases.

The collaboration will see the capabilities of Peptilogics’ artificial intelligence platform Nautilus being combined with drug discovery platform of Orion Biotechnology.

The firms will leverage expertise in peptide design and engineering to boost drug discovery against an undrugged peptidergic GPCR connected to life-threatening diseases.

This Nautilus platform allows silico predictive peptide design across various targets to access new functional chemical space and custom design therapeutics.

Furthermore, supercomputer of Peptilogics speeds up model development, prediction and analysis of peptide sequences, to create quality hits with higher chance of success.

Orion Biotechnology’s platform explores receptor-ligand shape space leveraging multiplex synthesis technology to produce precision-engineered peptides with improved potency and customised signaling activity.

The platform produces data matrices for AI-assisted lead optimisation, thereby providing fast drug discovery and development solutions to target peptidergic GPCRs, claimed Orion Biotechnology.

Commenting on this collaboration, Orion Biotechnology vice president for drug discovery Dr. Oliver Hartley said: “We are pleased to be partnering with Peptilogics to push the boundaries of receptor pharmacology and AI computing to accelerate innovation for improved patient outcomes. An AI-driven paradigm shift is happening in drug discovery, and Orion is pleased to be at the forefront of applying AI to the highly valuable space around GPCRs.

“The ideal fit between Orion’s platform and unique knowledge of receptor-ligand interactions with Peptilogics’ machine learning models will position us to make AI-driven GPCR drug discovery a reality.”

Peptilogics chief technology officer Nicholas Nystrom said: “Using Peptilogics’ Nautilus platform, we combine proprietary deep generative models, predictive models, and biophysical simulation to design multiparameter-optimized peptides that have the potential to address historically challenging and novel drug targets. Our AI algorithms enable efficient navigation of the vast peptide design space, allowing us to uncover molecules that may not be discovered through traditional screening.

“We are excited to partner with Orion Biotechnology for their deep GPCR expertise. By combining the strengths of Peptilogics’ Nautilus AI-driven peptide design platform and Orion’s GPCR platform, we aim to reduce the risk, time, and cost for drug design.”