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

Standigm Inc., an AI-based drug discovery company and SK Chemicals Co., Ltd., a life science and green chemicals company, announced that they had successfully found a new arthritis indication for an FDA-approved drug and filed a patent. This is the first successful result of their open innovation partnership, formed in July 2019. 

The collaboration is aimed at identifying novel or repurposed drug candidates for rheumatoid arthritis, leveraging Standigm's AI-powered drug discovery platforms: Standigm BEST™, Standigm Insight™, and Standigm ASK™. SK Chemicals has shared their expertise in arthritis and validated the predicted targets and compounds through in vitro and in vivo studies. 

The compound in the patent was discovered by Standigm Insight™ and showed comparable or better improvements in its arthritis disease activity score than reference drugs in arthritis mice. As the compound was already approved, significant savings in cost and time during its development for the new indication are expected.   

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

Jeonghoon Kim, Director of the R&D Center at SK Chemicals, said, "Our successful open innovation partnership combines Standigm's advanced AI technology and SK Chemicals' deep expertise in drug development. It will be continued to address unmet needs in treating intractable diseases." 

Standigm

Standigm is an AI-driven drug discovery company. Pursuing full-stack, AI-driven industrializing drug discovery, Standigm has achieved the automation of molecular design workflow, DarkMolFactory™, and the automation effort has been expanding to the whole drug discovery process based on StandigmAI platforms: Standigm ASK™ for target discovery, Standigm BEST™ for lead selection, and Standigm Insight™ for drug repurposing.

SK Chemicals

SK Chemicals(KRX: 285130) is a leading company in the fields of chemistry and life science. SK Chemicals' life sciences business drives to pharmaceuticals and biologics and is aimed at providing comprehensive healthcare solutions that cover patient care from diagnosis to treatment. SK Chemicals successfully developed the first new synthetic drug in Korea, Sunpla®. SK Chemicals boasts a diverse line of medicines including arthritis patch, Trast® and blood circulation agent, Ginexin®.