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Veritas In Silico Inc. (Head Office: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Shingo Nakamura) announced the launch of its joint research with Asahi Kasei Pharma (Head Office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President & Representative Director: Yoshikazu Aoki) for the discovery of novel small-molecule drugs targeting mRNA.

The new field of RNA-targeted small molecules is rapidly gaining attention due to the current difficulty of developing drugs against conventional protein targets. As one of the pathfinders in the field, Veritas In Silico is paving the way for the realization of mRNA-targeted small-molecule drugs. Veritas In Silico’s proprietary in silico technology enables the identification of druggable motifs with high existence probabilities on the mRNA, and its high-throughput assay allows for the rapid screening of small molecules that act on the target motifs on the mRNA.

In this joint research, Veritas In Silico will identify the target motifs on the mRNAs specified by Asahi Kasei Pharma and establish the assay system for each mRNA. Asahi Kasei Pharma will then perform screening to obtain hit small-molecule compounds against the target mRNAs.

Following successful hit identification in this joint research, clinical drug candidates targeting mRNA are expected to be discovered by applying Veritas In Silico’s technologies to determine the three-dimensional structures of the target mRNAs with the compounds and Asahi Kasei Pharma’s technology and experience in drug discovery and development.

About Veritas In Silico Inc.
Veritas In Silico is opening the path towards the realization of mRNA-targeted drugs. Powered by its platform of core technologies in RNA informatics and biology, which includes technologies in analyzing the three-dimensional structures of the target mRNAs with the compounds using NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography and the important interactions using quantum mechanical calculations, Veritas In Silico will continue to focus on providing new treatments for patients suffering from diseases for which there have been no effective treatments.