Numerate Company Blog

Numerate Forms Drug Discovery Collaboration with Merck to Utilize Numerate’s In Silico Drug Design Technology

Guido Lanza — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:55:10 +0000

I am proud to announce our latest partnership with Merck. This collaboration is another sign that our business and technology continue to grow.

Numerate Forms Drug Discovery Collaboration with Merck to Utilize Numerate’s In Silico Drug Design Technology; Research to Focus on Cardiovascular Disease Target

SAN BRUNO, CA – March 14, 2012 – 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 it has entered into a research collaboration with Merck, through a subsidiary. The collaboration will utilize Numerate’s proprietary in silico drug design technology to generate novel small molecule drug leads for an undisclosed cardiovascular disease target.

“We are pleased to add Merck, a recognized leader in drug discovery innovation, to our growing number of pharmaceutical collaborators,” stated Numerate chief executive officer Guido Lanza. “This collaboration is focused on increasing the speed, cost-efficiency and likelihood of generating new small molecule drug leads through the use of our large-scale computational drug design methods.”

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.

Numerate and Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Form Drug Discovery Collaboration

Guido Lanza — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:07:14 +0000

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.”

Recent Numerate Publications

John Griffin — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:19:32 +0000

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.

Numerate receives Red Herring’s Top 100 Award

Guido Lanza — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:12:51 +0000

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.”

Numerate Appoints David Jobes, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Business and Corporate Development

Guido Lanza — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:43:21 +0000

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 to present results at the American Chemical Society meeting in Anaheim

Nigel Duffy — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 05:20:24 +0000

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!

Numerate awarded patent

Nigel Duffy — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 05:16:12 +0000

Numerate was recently awarded U.S. Patent 7,856,321 B2, covering the development of models based on phenotypic data. Specifically, it captures the idea that predictions of binding may provide a suitable representation for developing models of phenotypic effects thought to relate to binding events, but where the particular binding interactions underlying the effect may be unknown. We have validated this approach in the laboratory and used it to identify novel anti-bacterial compounds. The results of this work will be presented at the upcoming American Chemical Society meeting in Anaheim.

Amazon and Numerate write case study on cloud computing

Nigel Duffy — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:49:34 +0000

Our business is truly enabled by our use of the cloud, in particular Amazon Web Services (AWS) so we are delighted for them to release a study (http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/numerate/) on our use case. We perform all of our significant compute on Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) which provides us with access to the 1 million CPU hours each of our collaborations requires. With EC2 we only pay for what we use and more importantly we can bring on more capacity when and if we need it. Amazon has demonstrated remarkable foresight with this service and continues to release new capabilities. We are particularly excited about Amazon’s new Cluster Compute Nodes, and the evolution of their Virtual Private Cloud. Our use of the cloud, in particular how we handle security, is described in more detail on our technology blog (http://www.numerati.com).

Congresswoman Jackie Speier joins Numerate for contract announcement

Guido Lanza — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 23:35:53 +0000

We were pleased to welcome Congresswoman Jackie Speier to Numerate today, who joined us in announcing our three-year DTRA contract for speeding the design of biowarfare countermeasures. Also speaking at the press conference were Jeremy Leffler, Bay Bio Chief Operating Officer, along with our CEO Guido Lanza and our CTO, Nigel Duffy. The event, which highlighted Numerate’s achievements and potential contributions to both the biodefense and healthcare industries, was covered by members of the local TV and print media.

Four recent press articles

Guido Lanza — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:22:27 +0000

We’re excited about our recent press coverage, which reflects our increasing momentum and progress in developing our technology as well as advancing our partnering business. In fact, there are four recent articles that we wanted to bring to your attention:

The first, from the San Francisco Business Times, paints a high-level picture of the parallels between our approach to ranking molecules and strategies such as Google’s PageRank. We are particularly excited that the article highlighted what we believe to be our most compelling competitive advantage — our ability to deliver white powder in vials that performs as predicted in the lab.

http://www.portfolio.com/industry-news/health-care/2010/08/25/numerate-uses-technology-to-choose-which-drugs-to-advance

This article from FierceBiotech IT, expands on the Business Times piece and discusses the patent we were granted covering our novel application of machine-learning technology to challenges in drug discovery.

http://www.fiercebiotechit.com/story/report-google-code-tackles-drug-development/2010-08-20

We were pleased that BioCentury chose to feature Numerate in an “Emerging Company Profile,” which provides an in-depth look at our technology and describes the progress we’ve made since founding the company in 2007.

http://www.biocentury.com/biotech-pharma-news/emergingcompany/2010-08-23/numerate-believes-its-in-silico-drug-design-produces-less-risky-small-molecules-a13

Finally, BioWorld ran an item announcing the successful completion of our collaboration with Intellikine, noting that we were able to deliver backups for Intellikine’s already impressive lead series for PI3K–alpha inhibitors.

We will keep you apprised of similar articles in the future as we continue to grow our business, build our technology, and meet significant milestones, both for us and for our partners.