CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Biomunex Pharmaceuticals has formed two strategic artificial intelligence collaborations aimed at accelerating the discovery and development of its cancer immunotherapy pipeline.
The Paris- and Cambridge-based biopharmaceutical company said it will work with Gordion Bioscience and Tangramed Biotech, two AI-focused companies, to identify new target combinations for next-generation oncology treatments.
Biomunex specializes in the discovery and development of immunotherapies based on bispecific and multi-specific antibodies. The company said the collaborations are part of its broader strategy to integrate AI into its research and development activities, with a focus on improving target selection, shortening discovery timelines and increasing the likelihood of translational success.
Under the first collaboration, Biomunex will work with Gordion Bioscience, a U.S.-based AI-driven oncology company focused on patient-derived biological network analysis and computational target discovery. The companies will seek to identify novel bispecific target combinations in oncology, with the goal of adding original target pairs and differentiated cancer therapy candidates to Biomunex’s pipeline.
In a second collaboration, Biomunex will work with Tangramed Biotech, a France-based AI-enabled biotech company that develops multimodal target-combination discovery approaches using biomedical data analytics. That partnership will focus on identifying and prioritizing therapeutic opportunities that could use Biomunex’s proprietary BiXAb platforms.
Biomunex said the Tangramed collaboration is expected to use generative AI to help identify potential therapeutic candidates for solid tumors and hematological malignancies.
“Biomunex has developed with BiXAb® one of the most versatile and efficient technologies for the generation of bispecific antibodies. Gordion’s framework uncovers co-essential target pairs that conventional expression-based approaches often fail to detect. Gordion will systematically explore a broad landscape of target combinations, surfacing clinically differentiated pairs for breakthrough bispecific antibodies,” said Dr. Pawel Zawadzki, CEO of Gordion Bioscience.
“Translating the power of generative AI and biomedical data analytics into concrete and clinical impact is exemplified in this collaboration with Biomunex. By combining our AI-driven platform with Biomunex’s BiXAb® technologies, we believe that Tangramed will help Biomunex further accelerate the identification of high-value target combinations to create next-generation immunotherapies in oncology,” said Dr. Jinchao Yu, CSO of Tangramed Biotech.
“Artificial intelligence has become a major driver of innovation in drug discovery. By combining our expertise in bispecific and multi-specific antibodies and our BiXAb® platforms with the technologies developed by AI-driven companies, such as Tangramed Biotech and Gordion Bioscience, we are strengthening our ability to rapidly identify new therapeutic opportunities in oncology,” said Dr. Simon Plyte, CSO of Biomunex.
Dr. Pierre-Emmanuel Gerard, founding president and CEO of Biomunex, said the agreements build on the company’s existing use of computational tools.
“Biomunex has established for a long time a very cost- and time-effective process to bring disruptive innovation thanks to our BiXAb technologies, as well as our know-how in molecular modeling or in-silico design. These deals represent a step forward in our AI strategy, to accelerate even more our process to generate and develop new breakthrough clinical candidates,” Gerard said.
Biomunex said it also aims to further integrate AI across the company beyond research and development, including in finance, accounting, human resources, recruiting and legal operations.
