Insilico Medicine (HKEX: 3696), an AI-driven drug discovery company, and ASKA Pharmaceutical, a Japanese specialty pharma company focused on obstetrics and gynecology, have announced a strategic research collaboration to identify novel therapeutic targets for endometriosis, uterine fibroids, and adenomyosis using Insilico’s AI-driven target identification platform, PandaOmics.
Under the partnership, Insilico will use its AI platform to identify and explore disease hypotheses, while ASKA will validate the AI-predicted targets with high translational potential. The collaboration builds on ASKA’s existing use of Insilico’s AI software and applies the company’s recently unveiled TargetPro framework – an AI system that integrates multi-modal data into disease-specific models to predict which targets are most likely to advance to clinical stages.
“The preclinical validation of our previously AI-nominated targets of endometriosis demonstrates that AI can uncover actionable insights within the complex biological landscape of women’s disease,” said Dr. Frank Pun, head of Insilico Medicine’s Hong Kong site.
“At ASKA Pharmaceutical, we aim to accelerate the drug discovery process by leveraging AI across all stages of research and development,” said Dr. Shuzo Watanabe, head of ASKA’s Innovative Drug Discovery Research Division. “Through this partnership with Insilico Medicine, we hope to rapidly identify high quality and highly promising drug discovery targets.”
This is ASKA’s second women’s health R&D partnership to surface in recent weeks – the company also announced a joint research agreement with Teijin Pharma for AI-driven small-molecule drug discovery targeting gynecological diseases. The back-to-back deals signal a deliberate push by ASKA to build out its gynecological pipeline through AI-powered collaborations, addressing a disease burden that affects hundreds of millions of women globally.
