Toray and Veritas in Silico Sign Joint Drug Discovery Research Agreement

Tokyo, Japan, July 28, 2021 – Toray Industries, Inc. and Veritas in Silico Inc. announced today that they have signed a joint drug discovery research agreement to create innovative small molecule drugs (see note 1) targeting messenger RNA (mRNA).

Toray has done much to address unmet medical needs (note 2), using its technologies and experience from drug discovery research and development. Toray has created, for example, such small molecule drugs as DORNER™, the world’s first oral preparation of prostacyclin (PGI2) derivative. Another Toray innovation was REMITCH™ (note 3), a nalfurafine hydrochloride preparation that is the world’s first highly selective kappa opioid receptor agonist.

Veritas In Silico’s drug discovery platform, ibVIS, enables the development of small molecule drugs targeting local structures, motifs, found on mRNA. Veritas In Silico has taken advantage of that technological edge since 2018 to undertake joint drug discovery research in this field with several pharmas.

Toray and Veritas In Silico will integrate their technologies and expertise to jointly conduct mRNA-targeted drug discovery research for several genes. Such work will extend from identifying target mRNA motifs to securing drug candidate compounds that possess pharmacological effects interacting with the target motifs. Toray will leverage years of experience in protein-targeted drug discovery and its drug discovery infrastructure. Veritas In Silico will provide the ibVIS platform including validated RNA structural analysis, proven quantitative screening of RNA-binding compounds, experimental technology to measure binding of the compounds to target motifs, and robust structure-based drug discovery based on 3D structural analysis of RNA-small molecule complex and molecular orbital calculations.

Toray and Veritas In Silico will together develop innovative small molecule drugs that target mRNA, which conventional small molecule drug discovery has bypassed to date. They will do this to address high unmet medical needs and bring innovative new drugs to patients as swiftly as possible.

Notes

1. Small molecule drugs are regular medicines manufactured through chemical synthesis.

2. Unmet medical needs describes diseases for which treatments remain insufficient.

3. REMITCH™ is a registered trademark of TORII PHARMACEUTICAL CO., LTD.