Vivan Therapeutics, the Institute for Cancer Research and IDIBELL form new AI drug discovery collaboration to design new precision cancer drugs

Press Release

Vivan Therapeutics, the Institute for Cancer Research and IDIBELL form new AI drug discovery collaboration to design new precision cancer drugs

13 July, 2023

London, United Kingdom

Today, a collaboration has been announced between The Institute for Cancer Research, London, the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research (IDIBELL) and Vivan Therapeutics to co-develop multi-target molecules for precision oncology.

Cancer is a complex set of diseases driven by multiple mutations occurring in unique combinations, which generates a complex tumour network in each patient. Moreover, drug resistance is highly common when advanced cancer is treated with a single drug. Therefore, there is much potential in the development of novel efficient therapeutic approaches based on the simultaneous inhibition of several oncogenic targets. This strategy could increase efficacy, delay resistance and alleviate some of the limitations associated with prescribing several cancer drugs at the same time – which can be very toxic or pose other development problems, particularly in high-order drug combinations.

KRAS mutations occur in approximately 30% of human cancers and are particularly common in adenocarcinomas of the lung and colon. Several approaches to block KRAS activity are under development. However, mutant KRAS has proven to be hard to inhibit, to the point that it was considered an undruggable target until very recently. New KRAS G12C inhibitors have very recently been approved by the FDA or are in the latest phases of clinical development and recent research is also uncovering opportunities to target other mutated forms of KRAS. However, resistance develops within a few months. In addition, KRAS mutations are unlikely to occur alone, in most tumours extra cancer drivers are also present, sometimes with relevant roles in drug resistance, limiting the efficacy of single KRAS targeting. Therefore, the development of more efficient pharmacological tools to inhibit KRAS in vivo is an urgent unmet medical need.

Vivan Therapeutics has developed a collection of fruit fly KRAS models, either alone or in combination with other frequent cancer drivers, and also a technology platform to enable testing of cancer therapies in vivo at a high-throughput level.

The laboratory of Dr Albert Antolin, formerly at The Institute of Cancer Research and now at IDIBELL, is developing new computational methods using chemo- and bioinformatics to enable the efficient design of compounds that target multiple targets simultaneously, and thus could be an ideal approach to identify more efficacious KRAS inhibitors that are less prone to resistance. Professor Paul Workman, leader of the Signal Transduction and Molecular Pharmacology Team at ICR, is a world leader in the discovery and development of small molecule cancer therapeutics and has experience in both industry and the academic sector. Professor Workman has been instrumental in the discovery of more than 20 small-molecule drugs, 13 of which have reached clinical trials, including an FDA-approved anti-cancer drug. Professor Workman has great expertise in cellular and animal testing and will provide his long experience in drug discovery and development, potentially also testing the small molecules discovered in this project in cancer cell lines in his laboratory before their evaluation in fly models.

Vivan Therapeutics will utilize its proprietary technology, including its advanced cancer models to test new chemical entities designed and developed through the application of in silico modelling and computational design at the ICR and IDIBELL.

Chief Scientific Officer of Vivan Therapeutics, Dr Nahuel Villegas, comments “Our fruit fly cancer models are specifically engineered to recapitulate the full complexity of individual’s tumours, we are particularly delighted to start this collaboration to put these models to work for the development of novel and very much needed new therapeutic treatments.”

Laura Towart, CEO of Vivan Therapeutics added, “We are thrilled to work with the Antolin and Workman labs to pioneer new therapies for hard to treat cancers.”

Dr Albert Antolin, principal investigator at IDIBELL, said: “I am really excited about this multi-disciplinary, industry-academia collaboration because the partners bring very different and complementary expertise to tackle an important challenge that could make a big difference to many patients with cancers harbouring KRAS mutations.”

Professor Paul Workman said: “I am delighted to be in this collaboration aimed to overcome the major problem of drug resistance in KRAS-driven cancers.”

About Vivan Therapeutics

Vivan Therapeutics provides personalised treatment recommendations for cancer. Their platform technology, the Personal Discovery Process, was developed at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai Medical Center. It involves whole exome sequencing of a patient’s tumor biopsy and blood, identification of potential tumorigenic mutations, incorporation of up to 20 cancer genetic alterations into fruit flies to serve as patient avatars, and massive screening campaigns of all FDA/EMA-approved drugs to identify specific drug combinations for individual patients. Vivan’s platform powers biopharma in drug development programs by tailoring investigational treatments to customized genetic signatures, allowing an unprecedented level of stratification for clinical trials.  Vivan’s in vivo high throughput drug screening platform also powers biopharma discovery and development across different genetic diseases internally and with biopharma clients and collaborators. We have developed a suite of KRAS variant models available to biopharma for competitive profiling, drug discovery and development. 

For general information, visit www.vivantx.com .

About The Institute of Cancer Research, London

The Institute of Cancer Research, London, is one of the world’s most influential cancer research institutions with an outstanding track record of achievement dating back more than 100 years. Our mission is to make the discoveries that defeat cancer.

As well as being one of the UK’s leading higher education institutions in research quality and impact, the ICR is consistently ranked as one of the world’s most successful for industry collaboration. We are also a charity and rely on the support of partner organisations, funders, donors and the general public.