A generative AI drug discovery company based out of Vancouver has announced a collaboration with Merck, an American pharmaceutical titan established in 1891.
The partnership will see Variational AI leverage its signature Enki platform to design and optimize novel small molecule candidates against two undisclosed targets, according to a statement from the firms.
Variational AI was founded in 2019 by Handol Kim, Jason Rolfe, and Mark Day. The company’s Enki platform is based on a foundation model trained on the company’s own internal data as well as curated publicly available data.
The future of drug discovery lies not in screening molecules, according to the founders, but in generating them.
“We are excited to apply our proprietary machine learning algorithms to Merck’s extensive and valuable datasets to create unique, fine-tuned generative models of unprecedented power and accuracy,” stated Kim, who serves the startup as chief executive officer.
Under the agreement, Variational AI will utilize a “fine-tuned version” of its Enki platform.
This special version, trained on Merck’s proprietary data, will generate and optimize small molecule candidates against therapeutic targets designated by Merck, says Kim.
“This is a compelling framework that has the potential to significantly accelerate and redefine the unit economics of drug discovery,” the CEO said.
Merck will have the exclusive right to develop and commercialize compounds arising from the collaboration, according to a statement, with Variational AI eligible to receive a total potential deal value of up to US$349 million.
Robert Garbaccio, who functions as Head of Discovery Chemistry for Merck Research Laboratories, says Merck is “working to harness the potential of AI to improve efficiency, speed, and quality of candidates earlier in the discovery continuum.”
“We look forward to working with Variational AI to apply their Enki platform to challenging therapeutic targets,” he stated.
Earlier this year, the startup secured US$5.5M in an oversubscribed seed extension round before being named “Emerging Company of the Year” in the Biotech category by Life Sciences BC.
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