NEW YORK – Indivumed said Wednesday that it is partnering with biotechnology firm CellPhenomics on cancer drug target discovery and validation.
The two German companies will draw on Indivumed's artificial intelligence-driven oncology analytics technology and CellPhenomics' organoid tumor model-building for both in silico target discovery and in vitro validation.
Under the partnership, Indivumed will use its nRavel bioinformatics platform to identify, characterize, and prioritize potential drug targets for various tumor types, then CellPhenomics will build cellular models based on the same tumors for Indivumed to validate.
Hartmut Juhl, CEO and founder of Hamburg, Germany-based Indivumed, said in a statement that the partnership will allow the companies to accelerate oncology drug development. Indivumed is participating with support from the European Union's ERDF structural fund, which awarded the firm €4.3 million ($4.3 million) in January to accelerate cancer drug discovery and precision oncology.
"Indivumed's comprehensive database and advanced AI capabilities are critical for identifying therapeutically relevant targets," added CellPhenomics CEO Christian Regenbrecht. "Combining these targets with CellPhenomics' patient-derived models and in vitro assays will enable reliable conclusions to be drawn about the treatability of the tumor and its functional causes of therapeutic success and failure."