Standigm and SK Chemicals Repurpose FDA-approved Drug into Rheumatoid Arthritis Candidate and Apply for Patent through their Open Innovation Partnership

SEOUL, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#AI--Standigm Inc. (“Standigm”), an artificial intelligence (AI)-based drug discovery company and SK Chemicals Co., Ltd. (“SK Chemicals”), a life science and green chemicals company, announce today that they have successfully found a new rheumatoid arthritis indication for an FDA-approved drug and have filed a patent. This is the first successful result of their open innovation partnership, formed in July 2019.

The research collaboration is aimed at identifying novel lead compounds and repurposing existing drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, leveraging Standigm’s AI-powered drug discovery platforms: Standigm BEST™, Standigm Insight™, and Standigm ASK™. SK Chemicals has shared their expertise in these diseases and validated the predicted targets and compounds through in vitro and in vivo studies.

The compound in the patent was discovered by Standigm Insight™, an AI-aided drug-repurposing platform. In a mouse model with collagen-induced arthritis, it showed comparable or better improvements in its rheumatoid arthritis disease activity score than reference drugs such as methotrexate and hydroxychloroquine. Further research on and development of the compound is ongoing with the objective of completing preclinical studies. As the compound was already approved by the FDA for its original indication, the companies are expecting significant savings in cost and time associated with its pre- or clinical development for the new indication.

“This patent is just the beginning of many results expected from our extended collaboration. We look forward to announcing AI-aided new drug candidates as well as more AI-driven repurposed drug candidates.” Jinhan Kim, co-founder and CEO of Standigm said, “Partnering with SK Group has been incredibly productive. We are also accelerating collaboration with SK C&C on our jointly developed iCLUE&ASK™ platform.”

Jeonghoon Kim, Director of the R&D Center at SK Chemicals, said, “The recent findings result from our successful open innovation partnership, which combines Standigm’s advanced AI platform technology and SK Chemicals’ deep expertise in drug discovery and development. We will continue to expand our collaboration to address unmet needs in treating intractable diseases.”

About Standigm

Standigm is an AI-driven drug discovery company. Applying its own innovative AI to the real world, Standigm currently has more than 20 preclinical pipelines across various therapeutic areas. Pursuing full-stack, AI-driven industrializing drug discovery, Standigm has achieved the automation of molecular design workflow through DarkMolFactory™, and the automation effort has been expanding to the whole drug discovery process on the basis of Standigm AI platforms, including Standigm ASK™ for target discovery, Standigm BEST™ for lead selection, and Standigm Insight™ for drug repurposing. Founded in 2015, Standigm has raised $23M from leading investors and developed an elite team with multi-disciplinary expertise in chemistry, biology, pharmacology, artificial intelligence, and data structures to ease the pains of patients all over the world. Learn more at https://www.standigm.com.

About SK Chemicals

SK Chemicals is a leading company in the fields of chemistry and life science. Since the establishment of Sunkyung Textiles in 1969, SK chemicals has grown through continuous change and innovation into a chemical and life sciences enterprise representing South Korea. SK Chemicals’ life sciences business is dominated by pharmaceuticals and biologics and is aimed at providing comprehensive healthcare solutions that cover patient care from diagnosis to treatment and prevention. SK Chemicals successfully developed the first new drug in Korea, Sunpla®, in 1999, thereby opening up a new chapter in the field of synthetic new medicines. The company established a competitive product portfolio in the pharmaceutical field with the consecutive launches of MVIX®, an erectile dysfunction treatment, and MVIX S®, a film-type erectile dysfunction treatment. In addition to its first new natural medicine Joins SK Chemicals boasts a diverse line of medicines including the arthritis treatment patch, Trast® and blood circulation improvement agent, Ginexin®. Learn more at https://www.skchemicals.com.

Minyoung So
Senior Scientist
+1 734 277 8862
minyoung.so@standigm.com