Xeureka and Sumitomo Pharma Announce a Collaborative Research Agreement for Small-Molecule Drug Discovery

Xeureka Inc. (Minato-ku, Tokyo; President: Taisei Nagae; hereinafter, “Xeureka”) has entered into a collaborative research agreement with Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd. (Osaka; Representative Director, President and CEO: Toru Kimura; hereinafter, “Sumitomo Pharma”) to conduct collaborative research in the field of small-molecule drug discovery.

Under this collaboration, the two companies will work together, based on their respective roles, to design and evaluate novel small-molecule compounds targeting specific biological targets identified by Sumitomo Pharma, with the aim of generating new drug candidate compounds.

Xeureka will promote this collaborative research by leveraging its advanced computational drug discovery technologies, including its in-house developed Free Energy Perturbation* program, “Xeureka FEP,” and its molecular generation tool, “XE-Generator,” as well as other proprietary technologies.

Based on its large-scale supercomputing infrastructure and proprietary computational drug discovery technologies, Xeureka provides drug discovery support services utilizing a wide range of computational approaches, including artificial intelligence (AI) and large-scale molecular dynamics simulations. Xeureka remains committed to addressing the diverse needs of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and to contributing to significant improvements in the efficiency and success rate of drug discovery research.

* Free Energy Perturbation (FEP):
A statistical mechanics–based computational method for calculating changes in free energy upon ligand–protein binding, making it one of the most reliable approaches for highly accurate prediction of binding affinities.

** XE-Generator:
A proprietary molecular generation tool developed by Xeureka. In addition to commonly used approaches such as matched molecular pair (MMP)-based structural transformations, bioisosteric replacement, and reaction-based molecular generation, XE-Generator incorporates more than 6,000 structural transformation rules meticulously constructed based on the experience and expertise of seasoned medicinal chemists. This enables the comprehensive generation of thousands to hundreds of thousands of highly practical compound structures starting from an input structure.

About Xeureka Inc.

Address: 3-2-2 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan
President: Taisei Nagae
Established: November 2021
Shareholder: MITSUI & CO., LTD. (100%)
Business: Providing AI drug discovery support services and high-performance computing environments (supercomputers) to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, as well as conducting collaborative research and development for the purpose of drug discovery.
URL: https://xeureka.co.jp/en/

About Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd.

Headquarters: 2-6-8 Doshomachi, Chuo-ku, Osaka, Japan
Representative Director, President and CEO: Toru Kimura
Established: May 1897
Business: Manufacturing and sales of pharmaceuticals and others
URL:https://www.sumitomo-pharma.com/