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Translational Medicine Accelerator and Cyclica Form Rare Disease Accelerator

January 9, 2020

Translational Medicine Accelerator and Cyclica Partner to Form Rare Diseases Medicine Accelerator

The Translational Medicine Accelerator and Cyclica have partnered to form the Rare Diseases Medicine Accelerator, a joint venture that will be focused on accelerating the discovery of novel patient-driven therapies for rare and ultra-rare diseases.

Up to 10 percent of the world’s population suffers from one or more of the 10,000 estimated rare diseases defined by the Monarch Disease Ontology, resulting in chronic, progressive, and terminal medical conditions that are often misdiagnosed or clinically mismanaged. As a result of diverse and complex biology that spans the rare disease category, lack of patient access in the developing world, and the traditional cost burdens associated with developing focused therapeutics, more than 95 percent of these rare diseases have no FDA-approved treatment option. The result is a substantial population of patients suffering from significant unmet needs.

The Rare Diseases Medicine Accelerator (RDMA) combines the expertise of the partners, utilizing Cyclica’s powerful, disease agnostic, AI-augmented drug discovery platform to advance opportunities identified from patient and clinical endpoint data within Translational Medicine Accelerator’s (TMA’s) precision healthcare platform. RDMA will then support the development of novel therapeutics addressing rare and ultra-rare diseases through the creation of early-stage biotechnology companies that have demonstrable patient value. Initially, the RDMA will focus on patient populations in regions that include Latin America as well as East and Sub Saharan Africa.

“TMA has always been focused on making a difference for patients. Working with Cyclica’s extraordinary team and their best-in-class AI-augmented platform, we can create an efficient and systematic approach for developing more effective medicines for individuals, furthering the deployment of precision healthcare at scale,” said Joshua Resnikoff, CEO of TMA.

Based in Boston, the Translational Medicine Accelerator (TMA) is a precision healthcare technology and services platform company, driven by the vision of making personalized healthcare accessible to everyone. Its services are offered to healthcare systems around the world seeking to treat patients suffering from difficult to diagnose, recalcitrant, rare, and ultra-rare disease states.

Cyclica, based in Toronto, Canada, aims to decentralize the discovery of new medicines with its integrated structure-based and AI-augmented drug discovery platform. The company says it can design advanced lead-like molecules that minimize unwanted off-target effects, while providing a holistic understanding of a molecule’s activity through integrated systems biology and structural pharmacogenomics.

“Our goal at Cyclica from day one has been to partner with world leaders to accelerate the discovery of new medicines for patients suffering from a myriad of diseases irrespective of the size of the patient population, says Naheed Kurji, president and CEO of Cyclica. “By partnering with the world-class team at TMA, we will advance the discovery of medicines for those patients who are suffering from the most understudied and neglected diseases.”

Photo: Naheed Kurji, president and CEO of Cyclica

Author: Rare Daily Staff

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