SK Biopharmaceuticals partners with twoXAR to develop lung cancer treatment

By Lim Chang-won Posted : April 18, 2019, 11:10 Updated : April 18, 2019, 11:10

[Courtesy of SK Pharmaceuticals]

SEOUL -- SK Biopharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical arm of South Korea's SK Group, agreed with twoXAR, an American artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery company, to jointly develop novel and efficacious treatments for non-small cell lung cancer.

There are two types of lung cancer -- small cell lunger cancer and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which accounts for about 85 percent of all lung cancer patients. SK Biopharmaceuticals has established an AI design platform that can predict the characteristics of drugs and enable the design of new compounds.

SK Biopharmaceuticals said in a statement on Thursday that it would carry out optimization work through its AI design platform and verify the effectiveness and safety of new drugs, while twoXAR, based in California, will use AI technology to find new drug candidate materials.

"We are confident that the combination of AI technology and research capabilities from twoXAR and SK Biopharmaceuticals will reduce the time spent on finding and developing new drug candidate materials than before," said Maeng Cheol-young, who heads SK Biopharmaceuticals' anti-cancer research institute.

"AL-based technology is being used in a new and efficient way to find promising new drug candidate materials," he said. twoXAR CEO Andrew Radin vowed to use the platforms of the two companies for the quick development of new drugs, citing a high demand in new treatments for lung cancer which has a high death rate.

 
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