Lundbeck has tapped Charles River Laboratories’ artificial intelligence capabilities to aid the discovery of neuroscience treatments, partnering with the service provider to use Logica in its research projects.
Charles River established Logica in partnership with Valo Health, the Flagship Pioneering-backed startup that has brought together machine learning, tissue biology and patient data to try to change how drugs are discovered and developed. With Logica, Charles River sought to leverage Valo’s work to make drug discovery and preclinical development easier, more efficient and more economical.
Lundbeck has identified the technology as a potential enabler of its ambitions. The Danish drugmaker will apply the platform to its work on disorders of the central nervous system. Lundbeck is focused on improving outcomes in brain disorders but, like everyone in the field, has suffered its share of setbacks. Logica could help Lundbeck create optimized small molecules that lead to novel therapies.
For years, researchers have worked to generate insights into the biology of brain disorders and use them to generate a new generation of more targeted, effective treatments, much like has happened in cancer. Tarek Samad, Ph.D., head of global research at Lundbeck, positioned the use of Logica in that context.
“To make a significant impact on neurological diseases today, you need to be able to work on unprecedented molecular targets with causal biology,” Samad said. “Partnering with Logica will allow us to use a unique tool set, including AI-driven approaches, to overcome drug design challenges which often slow down the translation of promising targets into drug candidates.”
The deal follows changes to Lundbeck’s leadership team that CEO Charl van Zyl, talking on an earnings call in May, said (PDF) could change how the company approached neuroscience and AI. The changes will help Lundbeck “further elevate our thinking around where neuroscience is going,” van Zyl said, and build a view of “what other capabilities might we need, how do we think about AI.”