December 27, 2022 –RaQualia Pharma Inc. (Head Office: Nagoya, Aichi, Japan; President & CEO: Hirobumi Takeuchi; “RaQualia Pharma”) and Veritas In Silico Inc. (Head Office: Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan; Representative Director & CEO: Shingo Nakamura; “Veritas In Silico”) announced today that they have entered into a joint drug discovery research agreement, to create innovative small molecule drugs targeting messenger RNA (mRNA) by integrating RaQualia Pharma’s small molecule drug discovery technology and Veritas In Silico’s platform technology specialized in drug discovery against mRNA targets.

RaQualia Pharma, as an R&D-oriented biotech company, has cultivated its small molecule drug discovery technologies and is strengthening its efforts to acquire new technologies with the aim of creating new drugs that lead to breakthroughs in disease areas with high medical needs from patients. Veritas In Silico has established a drug discovery platform, ibVIS^®, that enables the identification of target structures on mRNA and the creation of small molecule drugs for these target structures to open a new drug discovery area that replaces conventional protein targets. Veritas In Silico has already started small molecule drug discovery research for mRNA targets in collaboration with several pharmaceutical companies. RaQualia Pharma’s challenge to develop new modalities, including mRNA-targeted small molecule drugs, made Veritas In Silico’s ibVIS^® a perfect integration, leading to the conclusion of this joint drug discovery research agreement.

RaQualia Pharma and Veritas In Silico will jointly conduct multi-year drug discovery research targeting several cancer-related genes designated by RaQualia Pharma; the research includes all drug discovery processes of identification of target structures on the mRNAs corresponding to the genes of targets, obtaining of hit compounds through high-throughput screening, identification of lead compounds through hit validation, and nomination of drug candidate compounds through lead optimization. RaQualia Pharma will obtain an option right concerning the exclusive worldwide rights to develop, manufacture, distribute, and market the drug candidate compounds discovered through this joint drug discovery research. RaQualia Pharma will pay Veritas In Silico an upfront payment and a research collaboration fee as an access fee for Veritas In Silico’s ibVIS^Ⓡ technology. In the case the development and commercialization of the candidate compounds are achieved, RaQualia Pharma will possibly make several milestone payments to Veritas In Silico based on the progress of development and commercialization, as well as royalties.

“We are very pleased to be working with Veritas In Silico, which has an mRNA-targeted drug discovery platform, to create a completely new type of small molecule drugs targeting mRNA,” said Hirobumi Takeuchi, President and CEO of RaQualia Pharma. “Together with Veritas In Silico, we will strive to create new drugs that make breakthroughs, with the expectation that the technology developed in the collaboration can be applied not only to cancers but also to a wide range of disease areas such as neurological diseases.”

“We are very pleased to be working with RaQualia Pharma, a company with a proven track record of creating innovative new drugs, to create a completely new type of small molecule drugs for diseases for which no small molecule drugs have been discovered until now,” said Shingo Nakamura, Representative Director and CEO of Veritas In Silico. “Together with RaQualia Pharma, we will take on the challenge of creating new drugs that address unmet medical needs by fully leveraging our experiences as a leading company in the mRNA-targeted drug discovery field.”

Through the joint drug discovery research, RaQualia Pharma and Veritas In Silico will build a strong cooperative relationship and improve patients’ quality of life by providing new treatment options for cancers.

About About RaQualia Pharma
RaQualia Pharma Inc. has its research headquarters in Nagoya, Japan, and is a research and development-based pharmaceutical company whose aim is to create new pharmaceutical products with cutting-edge science and technology focusing on medical fields where patients have the greatest need. RaQualia creates　development compounds, the seeds for new drugs, via an open collaboration network which they have designed. RaQualia then delivers valuable new treatments to patients by licensing these compounds to partners who in turn bring that innovation to market.
For more information, please visit https://www.raqualia.com/.

About Veritas In Silico
Veritas In Silico Inc. is a platform biotech company with its headquarters in Tokyo and laboratories in Kanagawa and Niigata, Japan, dedicated to creating mRNA-targeted small molecules and antisense oligonucleotides. Veritas In Silico has established an mRNA-targeted drug discovery platform, “ibVIS^®,” and provides pharmaceutical companies under collaboration with a series of innovative platform technologies required for mRNA-targeted drug discovery, including RNA structural analysis, quantitative screening of RNA-binding small molecules, experimental techniques for measuring binding of small molecules to target RNA structures, and SBDD based on 3D structural analysis of RNA-small molecule complexes and molecular orbital calculations, having so far obtained various mRNA-binding compounds that inhibit the translational reaction of the target gene at the cellular level. Veritas In Silico aims to realize a warm and hopeful society through next-generation drug discovery targeting mRNA.
For more information, please visit https://www.veritasinsilico.com/en/.

RaQualia Pharma and Veritas in Silico enter into a new joint research agreement for mRNA-targeted small molecule drug discovery (PDF)