A new use of Artificial Intelligence for sarcoma drug discovery

The Brussels-based company Kantify, specialized in AI for drug discovery, is announcing exciting new results in liposarcomas. Liposarcoma are a subtype of sarcoma (a rare form of cancer) and are currently lacking satisfactory therapeutic solutions.

Kantify recently disclosed initial findings at the ESMO Sarcoma and Rare Cancers Congress 2024. Through a poster, the company presented it work on the discovery of promising drugs in liposarcoma.

The poster, co-authored by Nik Subramanian and Dr Maya Jeitany, focused on the application of Kantify’s cutting-edge AI platform, Sapian, to identify novel therapeutic targets and small molecule drugs for liposarcoma, a rare and aggressive soft tissue cancer.

Initial project

Traditionally, drug discovery for liposarcoma has proven challenging. This is why we have used Kantify's AI platform Sapian to identify promising therapeutic targets and molecules. Sapian has enabled the research team to achieve significant progress:

• Identification of Novel Therapeutic Targets: Sapian successfully pinpointed several promising fully novel therapeutic targets within the complex biology of liposarcoma.

• Unprecedented Hit Rate: The study yielded an exceptional hit rate of approximately 77%. This means a remarkable number of potential drug candidates – seven compounds – demonstrated significant effectiveness in reducing the viability of liposarcoma cells. Notably, these compounds achieved IC50 values ranging from the low micromolar (µM) to nanomolar (nM) scale, indicating potent inhibitory activity.

Sapian offers a paradigm shift in rare cancer drug discovery as these results have been achieved in less than four months, which makes us spare years of research and validation, to the benefit of patients.

Dr Maya Jeitany

Future potential

For Kantify and Dr Jeitany, this project is a first step towards new drugs in liposarcoma.

Dr Jeitany and I are immensely encouraged by these initial results, which significantly outperform traditional drug discovery success rates. Sapian holds immense potential to accelerate the discovery and development of urgently needed effective therapies for sarcoma patients, either through repurposed drugs or new molecular entities.

Nik Subramanian, Kantify CTO

Towards AI driven discovery of molecules targeting rare cancers

This first poster at the ESMO Congress marks a significant milestone in our mission to revolutionize cancer treatment.

We remain dedicated to leveraging the power of AI to bring solutions to patients with liposarcoma and other difficult-to-treat cancers.

Learn more

Are you interested to learn more about our work on rare cancer drug discovery? Just reach out at hello [ @ ] kantify.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

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