XTALPI Announces AI Platform Licensing Agreement with UCB for Large Molecule Drug Discovery

On January 9, 2025, XtalPi (XtalPi Holdings-P, XTALPI-P, Stock Code: 2228.HK) announced that its subsidiary, Ailux Biologics, signed an AI platform licensing agreement for large molecule drug discovery with UCB, a multinational biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Belgium. Under the agreement, XtalPi grants UCB a commercial license to use Ailux Biologics' self-developed XtalFold™ AI platform for the discovery and engineering design of large molecule drugs. XtalFold™ is an AI-based software platform capable of providing rapid and accurate structural information for large molecule drug research and development, accelerating innovation across multiple stages of the R&D process.

XtalFold™ utilizes sequence information to model interactions between biomacromolecules, which are the basis for the efficacy of macromolecular drugs such as monoclonal antibodies. In rigorous benchmarking tests, XtalFold™ demonstrates industry-leading performance in overall success rate and the quality of challenging-to-model regions, such as antibody-antigen interfaces.XtalFold™ has been licensed to multiple global pharmaceutical companies.(Click to view more)，And has played a key role in a variety of R&D projects, including antigen design, epitope identification, affinity maturation, pH sensitivity modification, and bispecific antibody design, among others.

“UCB "It is one of the leading international pharmaceutical companies and also a pioneer innovator in using computational methods to design differentiated drugs that benefit patients."XtalPi CEO Ma Jian said,"We are honored to empower UCB's R&D efforts with XtalPi's AI protein structure prediction algorithm, helping them create more innovative drugs that change patients' lives."

Li Yi, Vice President of XtalPi and Head of Ailux Biologics, stated:"The Nobel Prize awarded not long ago was given for protein structure prediction. XtalFold™ is the embodiment of the industrial application of this technology. As a fully validated commercial solution, this technology is rapidly gaining popularity in the industry. We are very pleased to partner with UCB to further explore its potential."

"UCB has deep expertise in antibody discovery and engineering. We have established unique and efficient single B-cell screening and in vitro display discovery technologies to support hit molecule discovery, and we are a leader in structure-based and computer-aided molecular optimization. The introduction of XtalFold™ will further advance our R&D technology upgrade, integrating structural insights of antibody-antigen interactions into the entire antibody discovery and optimization process."Daniel Lightwood, Head of Antibody Discovery and Optimization at UCB, said.

Alexander Hillisch, Global Head of CADD (Computer-Aided Drug Design) at UCB, added:"After rigorous testing and comparison with other computational methods, we ultimately decided to introduce XtalFold™."We believe that it can significantly enhance UCB's ability to quickly discover high-quality antibody drugs, ultimately bringing new treatment options to patients."

● AboutUCB ● 

UCB, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium (www.ucb.com), is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of innovative medicines and solutions to improve the lives of patients with severe diseases of the immune system or central nervous system. UCB has approximately 9,000 employees across about 40 countries worldwide and generated revenue of 5.3 billion euros in 2023. UCB is listed on the Euronext Brussels stock exchange (symbol: UCB).

● AboutAilux Biologics ● 

Ailux Biologics is XtalPi(XtalPi Holdings Limited-P, XTALPI-P, Stock Code: 2228.HK)The large molecule drug discovery innovation department, with a team of about 100 experts, has established a first-class large molecule drug discovery laboratory in the industry, a proprietary database AtlaX™ specifically built for AI, and three major AI platforms – including the structural modeling platform XtalFold™, the generative protein large language model XenProT™, and the large molecule drug property prediction platform Xentient™. Ailux Biologics collaborates with large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, leveraging its AI-driven, wet-lab validated solutions to accelerate partners' large molecule drug R&D.