DarwinHealth Announces Strategic Research Collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb to Identify Novel Cancer Targets

NEW YORK, May 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- DarwinHealth, a New York City-based biotechnology company, today announced a research collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY). This research collaboration isNovel Cancer Targets# Protocol(NCTI), which employs biology-based quantitative systems algorithms, proprietary databases, and validated technologies to identify novel cancer targets (NCT) for various tumor subtypes.

The NCTI approach is grounded in the understanding of critical mechanisms underlying tumor dependence and maintenance beyond genetic mutations. To facilitate the discovery of NCTs, DarwinHealth will provide Bristol-Myers Squibb with proprietary information from its drug database, including tumor context-specific master regulator analyses across different tumor subtypes, as well as direct upstream regulators.

Gideon Bosker, CEO of DarwinHealth, stated, “This collaboration focuses on identifying novel high-value cancer targets across a curated set of tumor subtypes, with an emphasis on uncovering new targets that frequently appear across diverse cancer types, thereby enabling the design and development of drugs with indications spanning multiple subtypes.” “Once identified and prioritized, these targets will undergo rigorous experimental validation to accelerate Bristol-Myers Squibb’s development of next-generation anticancer therapies.”

Columbia UniversityDepartment of Systems BiologyProfessor Andrea Califano, Chair and Co-Founder and Chair of the DarwinHealth Scientific and Medical Advisory Board, stated, “Novel cancer targets will be selected and prioritized based on their roles as master regulators (MRs) or upstream regulators of master regulators (MRUMs) within tumor checkpoint modules in specific human malignancies.” “We believe that the mechanism-based insights provided by DarwinHealth’s precision oncology systems biology platform can significantly accelerate drug development targeting non-oncogene dependencies, which underpin and drive key cancer hallmarks.”

The NCTI protocol represents a significant extension and scientific exploitation of the multi-year Compound-to-Clinic (C2C) collaboration initiated with Celgene on August 28, 2019, aimed at evaluating and characterizing the tumor-related biological activities of a pre-specified library of Bristol-Myers Squibb compounds, and prioritizing them for clinical development and experimental validation.

As part of the NCTI collaboration, DarwinHealth will receive an upfront payment and may be eligible for milestone-based development and commercialization payments.