Our business and technology momentum continues to grow, as evidenced by our new collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada).  Under the agreement, we plan to speed the process of delivering active lead compounds against an important infectious disease target

Numerate and Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Form Research Collaboration Based on In Silico Drug Design Technology; Drug Discovery Research to Focus on Infectious Disease Target

SAN BRUNO, CA – December 6, 2011 – Numerate, Inc., a technology platform company that is leveraging the power of cloud computing and novel computational methods to transform the drug design process, announced today that it has entered into a research collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. The collaboration will utilize Numerate’s proprietary in silico drug design technology to generate novel small molecule drug leads for an undisclosed infectious disease target.

“Using our large-scale computational drug design methods, we expect to greatly reduce the time and cost of delivering new lead-stage, small molecule drug candidates in this important program for Boehringer Ingelheim,” stated Numerate chief executive officer Guido Lanza. “This collaboration is the latest in our growing number of partnerships with pharmaceutical companies that are looking to Numerate’s comprehensive in silico drug design technology to help them increase their success rate in generating novel, patentable small molecule leads.”

Numerate’s drug design platform features a set of proprietary algorithms that provide predictive models for molecular properties with accuracies comparable to laboratory testing.  Used in conjunction with cloud computing, these algorithms enable Numerate scientists to search through spaces of billions of compounds to rapidly and efficiently identify those with the highest probability of activity against a specific target.

Two papers were recently published reporting results obtained in projects carried out in collaboration with Prof. Chaitan Khosla of Stanford University and with Prof. Carl Nathan of Weill Cornell Medical College.  This work illustrates our ability to rapidly advance early stage projects to hit-to-lead and lead optimization, even when starting from only a couple dozen, non-diverse active compounds.  The work with Prof. Khosla on inhibitors of transglutaminase 2 (TG2) as potential therapies for celiac disease and metastatic cancer has resulted in the identification of multiple new and proprietary lead series.  The work with Prof. Nathan on inhibitors of protein kinase R (PKR) as therapies for tuberculosis resulted in the identification of a valuable probe compound, NMRT-2862, which inhibits PKR within macrophages without overt cytotoxicity and recapitulates the effects of genetic inactivation of PKR.

Full References:

“Acylideneoxoindoles:  A new class of reversible inhibitors of human transglutaminase 2.“  C. Klöck, X. Jin, K. Choi, C. Khosla, P.B. Madrid, A. Spencer, B.C. Raimundo, P. Boardman, G. Lanza and J.H. Griffin. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2011, 21, 2692-2696.

“Identification of new inhibitors of protein kinase R guided by statistical modeling.“  R. Bryk, K. Wu, B.C. Raimundo, P.E. Boardman, P. Chao, G.L. Conn, E. Anderson, J.L. Cole, N.P. Duffy, C. Nathan and J.H. Griffin. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2011, 21, 4108-4114.

We were pleased to receive Red Herring’s Top 100 award in June, which is given to selected North American tech start-ups in recognition of their vision, drive and innovation, as well as their strong potential for success. Hundreds of companies competed for this recognition, which was granted based on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, corporate strategy and market penetration. According to the Red Herring editorial staff, the Top 100 list is “a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models in North America.”

I am proud to announce that we have just added a new member to our executive team. We have appointed David Jobes to the position of Senior Vice President of Business and Corporate Development. We would like to welcome Dave to the team. He brings with him a great depth of knowledge and experience and I am confident that he will make a great addition to our growing team.

Numerate, Inc., a technology platform company that is leveraging proprietary algorithms and the power of cloud computing to transform the drug design process, announced today that David Jobes, Ph.D., has joined the company as senior vice president of business and corporate development.

Dr. Jobes brings over 10 years of biopharmaceutical industry experience to Numerate from such diverse areas as diagnostics, vaccines, and small molecule therapeutics. Prior to joining Numerate, he successfully headed his own consulting firm focused on assisting clients with transactional work and business development strategies. Previously, he was co-founder and vice president of business development at Presidio Pharmaceuticals, a small molecule antiviral company. Dr. Jobes also served in various research and leadership roles at VaxGen, Applied Biosystems, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“We are very pleased to welcome Dave to the executive management team at Numerate,” stated Guido Lanza, chief executive officer of Numerate. “His depth of experience in the biotech industry and record of deal making is a major benefit as we continue to expand our corporate partnerships beyond the big pharma relationships we currently have in place.”

“This is an exciting time to be joining Numerate,” commented Dr. Jobes. “It is with technologies like Numerate’s that we will finally begin to regain control of the spiraling time, money and resource costs currently required for generating a small molecule lead. Numerate’s proprietary strategy of combining medicinal chemistry, statistics and computer science, driven by state-of-the-art cloud computing, should help revolutionize the way companies design and discover novel, patentable small molecules.”

Numerate was selected to present three aspects of our work at the upcoming American Chemical Society meeting in Anaheim in March. The presentations will cover our technology for using ranking techniques to predict molecular properties, our technology for predicting phenotypic phenomena, and our approach to predicting pKa’s. As the schedule is defined, we will post updates here. We look forward to seeing you in Anaheim!