Helping researchers spot game-changing drug candidates

NanoTemper Technologies and PharmAI develop biophysical tools for the analysis of huge amounts of data in drug research

A coop­er­a­tion now under­way between Dres­den-based start-up Phar­mAI and Munich-based Nan­oTem per Tech­nolo­gies aims to do just that. In the future, the two part­ners will com­bine their know-how in inno­v­a­tive prod­ucts. Among oth­er things, these will enable small lab­o­ra­to­ries to enter the field of active ingre­di­ent research. For exam­ple, this would make it pos­si­ble to con­duct more research into drugs for rare dis­eases, the devel­op­ment of which is cur­rent­ly rather unprof­itable for large phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal companies.
Nan­oTem­per Tech­nolo­gies has been a leader in the devel­op­ment of devices and soft­ware solu­tions for the analy­sis of bio­mol­e­cules for years. To this end, the Munich-based com­pa­ny com­bines var­i­ous opti­cal mea­sure­ment meth­ods that use light to make impor­tant state­ments about mol­e­cules: about their size, com­po­si­tion, dura­bil­i­ty or poten­tial use as an active ingre­di­ent. The Dis­cov­eryEngine soft­ware, in turn, uses arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to find suit­able drug can­di­dates in large data­bas­es based on pro­tein struc­ture data. “We now want to bun­dle these com­pe­ten­cies to cre­ate added val­ue for our cus­tomers,” explains Dr. Philipp Baaske, one of the two man­ag­ing direc­tors of Nan­oTem­per Technologies.
Vir­tu­al screen­ing, he says, is where the future lies. “How­ev­er, cus­tomers don’t want to spend time deal­ing with mea­sured val­ues; they want to gain new insights and use them in their work. That’s exact­ly what we help with.” For Dr. Joachim Haupt, CEO of Phar­mAI, the col­lab­o­ra­tion is there­fore a next log­i­cal step. “Our soft­ware makes help­ful pre­dic­tions about drug can­di­dates and reduces mil­lions of pos­si­bil­i­ties to a man­age­able size,” he explains. The par­tic­u­lar devices and soft­ware are able to val­i­date those pre­dic­tions after­wards, he says, so cus­tomers can move for­ward with the results directly.
In the com­ing months, the com­pa­nies will com­bine their tech­nolo­gies to devel­op a new gen­er­a­tion of tools. “This will make us an enabler, because these prod­ucts will enable the entire indus­try to move for­ward and do things that are impos­si­ble today,” Baaske is con­vinced. For the com­pa­ny, the coop­er­a­tion also opens up mar­ket areas in which the start­up has not yet been active. “The col­lab­o­ra­tion enables us to apply our soft­ware to new prob­lems and is there­fore extreme­ly excit­ing for us,” Haupt adds. His team is look­ing for­ward to work­ing together.

“Bring­ing life-sav­ing drugs and ther­a­pies to mar­ket is more impor­tant than ever. In order to make big leaps in research quick­ly, the focus for these new drug devel­op­ment tools is reli­a­bil­i­ty and ease of use, so they can be used by as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble. Through this col­lab­o­ra­tion, we are able to focus our prod­ucts on what researchers need to be successful.”
— Philipp Baaske, Co-CEO of Nan­oTem­per Technologies

Both CEOs are con­vinced that these tools will help to devel­op drugs and new ther­a­pies in a much short­er time and at a low­er cost in the future.