Cerevel Therapeutics and Cyclica Announce Research Collaboration to Use Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Discovery of Novel Medicines in Neuroscience

Cerevel will utilize Cyclica’s Ligand Express^® and Ligand Design™ platforms to screen, identify, evaluate and optimize targets to develop neuroscience medicines

BOSTON & TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Cerevel Therapeutics, a company dedicated to unraveling the mysteries of the brain to treat neuroscience diseases, and Cyclica, whose AI-augmented, integrated platform enables multi-objective, polypharmacology-informed design of drug molecules, today announced a research collaboration aimed at accelerating the discovery of novel medicines for neuroscience diseases. Through this collaboration, Cerevel will use Cyclica’s Ligand Express and Ligand Design proprietary AI platforms to screen, identify, design and evaluate compounds directed at pre-specified targets for neuroscience diseases.

“Cerevel aims to be the premier neuroscience company by applying state-of-the-art technology and a differentiated approach to developing novel medicines,” said John Renger, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Cerevel Therapeutics. “We are using Cyclica’s world-class AI platform for high throughput screening in compound identification and optimization—which we believe can more efficiently identify new therapeutic molecules with symptomatic or disease-modifying potential. Utilizing cutting-edge tools like Cyclica’s is one of the many ways we are creating a leading neuroscience drug discovery and development platform for the future.”

“Leveraging Cyclica’s multi-targeted, proteome-wide approach, combined with Cerevel’s novel and relentless pursuit of advancing neuroscience, has the potential to bring medicines to patients suffering from neurological diseases faster,” said Vern De Biasi, vice president and global head of strategic partnerships at Cyclica.

In addition to its pipeline of five clinical assets and seven pre-clinical programs, Cerevel is pursuing undisclosed targets for numerous neurological indications, including those with disease-modifying potential. Cerevel is supporting these efforts through the use of AI, as well as human genetic analyses and DNA-encoded chemical libraries, to better understand the therapeutic potential of numerous chemical lead series.

“AI-based in silico drug design has made dramatic progress over the past five years and can significantly enhance our approach to designing potent and selective small molecules based upon predicted three-dimensional structure of protein targets,” said David Stone, head of genetics and biomarkers at Cerevel Therapeutics. “We will use Cyclica’s AI platforms to rapidly generate unique chemical matter for synthesis and testing, with the goal of faster development of new medicines for patients living with neuroscience diseases.”

“Cyclica’s drug discovery platform accelerates pre-clinical drug development by considering the polypharmacological profiles and medicinal properties of drug candidates simultaneously during the design process,” said Vijay Shahani, director of applied science at Cyclica. “We are excited by the opportunity to combine our technological approach with Cerevel’s strong expertise in neuroscience to drive the development of meaningful therapeutics.”

Terms of the collaboration with Cyclica are not disclosed.

About Cerevel Therapeutics

Cerevel Therapeutics is dedicated to unraveling the mysteries of the brain to treat neuroscience diseases. The company seeks to unlock the science surrounding new treatment opportunities through understanding the neurocircuitry of neuroscience diseases and associated symptoms. Cerevel Therapeutics has a diversified pipeline comprising five clinical-stage investigational therapies and several preclinical compounds with the potential to treat a range of neuroscience diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, schizophrenia and substance use disorder. Headquartered in Boston, Cerevel Therapeutics is advancing its current research and development programs while exploring new modalities through internal research efforts, external collaborations or potential acquisitions. For more information, visit www.cerevel.com.

About Cyclica

Cyclica is the first company to approach polypharmacology with a structure-based, AI-augmented in silico discovery platform, centered on Ligand Design and Ligand Express. Powered by MatchMaker™, a proprietary deep learning proteome screening technology, and POEM™, an innovative supervised learning technology for predicting molecular properties, Cyclica’s platform is suited uniquely to the design of novel, chemical matter by simultaneously prioritizing compounds based on their on- and off-target polypharmacological profiles as well as their developmental properties. With a world-class team that has deep roots in the industry, a first-in-class platform, and an innovative decentralized partnership model, Cyclica is creating medicines with greater precision for unmet patient needs.

Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based on management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: “may,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “project,” “potential,” “continue,” “ongoing” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. These statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from the information expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Although we believe that we have a reasonable basis for each forward-looking statement contained in this press release, we caution you that these statements are based on a combination of facts and factors currently known by us and our projections of the future, about which we cannot be certain. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements about the potential of artificial intelligence platforms to accelerate the discovery and development of novel medicines for neuroscience diseases. We cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements in this press release will prove to be accurate. Furthermore, if the forward-looking statements prove to be inaccurate, the inaccuracy may be material. In light of the significant uncertainties in these forward-looking statements, you should not regard these statements as a representation or warranty by us or any other person that we will achieve our objectives and plans in any specified time frame, or at all. The forward-looking statements in this press release represent our views as of the date of this press release. We anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause our views to change. However, while we may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we have no current intention of doing so except to the extent required by applicable law. You should, therefore, not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing our views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

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