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The company and its partners have raised $ 1 million to use and improve MFI’s virtual drug development software to support pre-clinical research on antibiotic-resistant bacteria and non-alcoholic fatty liver
Montreal, Quebec – (Newsfile Corp. – September 28, 2021) – Molecular Forecaster Inc. (MFI) is pleased to announce that it has secured funding to further develop its structure-based drug design software, offer and provide research services expand into new niche drug targets. The funding will help optimize the company’s own algorithms and will enable MFI and its partners to accelerate the design of small molecules against biological targets related to various diseases, including G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), metal enzymes, transcription factors and nucleic acids.
As a contract research company for drug research in silico, MFI has expertise in the fields of drug research, quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics, chemoinformatics and artificial intelligence (AI). This means that MFI can offer its customers – including many small biotech companies with a focus on research areas that don’t get a lot of attention – a unique synthesis of science, software and services to accelerate their early stage drug discovery process.
“In many ways, COVID normalized an approach to drug discovery that MFI has taken since we launched in 2010: finding ways to get the best done in the shortest time with the best tools available,†said Josh Pottel, President and CEO of MFI. “We see an ever increasing demand to accelerate drug discovery using computational approaches. We believe that our combination of domain knowledge and research experience makes MFI a partner of choice for small and medium-sized biotechs looking to reduce their pre-clinical research costs and skills and improve their success rates. “
As part of Génome Québec’s Genomics Integration Program, the MFI’s public-private partnership with the McKeague Lab of Genomic Chemistry and the Mittermeier Lab of Biomolecular Structure, Function, and Dynamics at McGill University has raised $ 400,000 for a two-year project to develop a rational designs and an in vitro screening pipeline secured the discovery of new classes of antibiotics against ribonucleic acid (RNA). Bacterial resistance to antibiotics poses a significant public health threat around the world and the ability to develop new therapies in response has been limited in part due to the lack of software options to accelerate their discovery. MFI believes that the software developed in this project can be used to develop drugs against a wide variety of bacteria, as well as other therapeutic agents that interact with RNA.
“We urgently need computer tools to model RNA and to screen molecules that act on RNA, which is what makes this project with MFI so exciting,” said Maureen McKeague, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Chemistry at McGill. “We hope to be able to prove the effectiveness of the MFI software in discovering drugs against RNA while also evaluating the small molecule hits as potential antibiotics against riboswitches.”
With the support of the biopharmaceutical research consortium CQDM, MFI has also secured investments in a project in partnership with AR Metabolic Inc. – an early stage biotech company developing therapies for non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) – and the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital. The three-year project focuses on developing a rational design and in vitro screening program that targets a key protein involved in sugar and fat metabolism.
“New active ingredients are normally discovered by screening substance libraries. However, screening libraries requires a significant investment of time and resources, â€said Laurent Amar, CEO of AR Metabolic. “With MFI, we can use artificial intelligence software to identify new interactions between molecules and target molecules – an innovative approach that will help us accelerate our efforts to cure health problems that affect nearly a quarter of the world’s population.”
The $ 600,000 award for this project includes $ 300,000 from the Department of Economy and Innovation of Quebec through its investment agency, Investissement Quebec.
“Thanks to its expertise in artificial intelligence and quantum technology, Quebec has the necessary resources to push the search for new drugs even further,” said Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister for Economic Affairs and Innovation and Minister responsible for regional economic development. “To become a global leader in the life sciences, we must continue to rely on our top industries and the creativity of our researchers.”
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About Molecular Forecaster Inc.
Molecular Forecaster Inc. (MFI) is a computational chemistry company with expertise in drug discovery, quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics, chemoinformatics, and artificial intelligence. MFI provides the world’s leading proprietary software, algorithms and contract research services, and works with organizations seeking to accelerate preclinical drug discovery, from start-up biotech companies to established pharmaceutical companies. MFI was founded in 2010 from research at McGill University and is now part of the Accelerate Quebec Program within the adMare Bioinnovations Center in Montréal, Canada.
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To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/97793
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