TORONTO, ON, CANADA (September 11, 2017) – Cyclica Inc. (www.cyclicarx.com), a Toronto-based life sciences technology company, is pleased to announce it is now a resident company at Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS @ Toronto, located in the MaRS Centre in Toronto, Canada.
JLABS @ Toronto is a 40,000 square-foot life science innovation center. The labs provide a flexible environment for start-up companies pursuing new technologies and research platforms to advance medical care. Through a “no strings attached” model, Johnson & Johnson Innovation does not take an equity stake in the companies occupying JLABS and the companies are free to develop products – either on their own, or by initiating a separate external partnership with Johnson & Johnson Innovation or any other company.
Cyclica’s cloud-based platform, Ligand Express™, is available to scientists in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmeceutical industries. Ligand Express™ combines an innovative structure-based proteome-wide screening technology with artificial intelligence to uncover and explain the effects of small-molecule therapeutics. The platform screens candidate drugs against all structurally-characterized proteins to identify molecular interactions that provide information about “on-” and “off-target” binding events. Accordingly, Cyclica is able to provide critical insights into the mechanism-of-action of small-molecule drugs, by determining which proteins are likely to be modulated by the drug. This unique approach has been applied towards the identification of drug targets, prioritization of lead candidates, understanding side effects, and the determination of new uses for existing drugs. This capability can augment drug discovery and development workflows, expand development pipelines, and facilitate the translation of assets from bench to bedside.
Naheed Kurji, President and CEO of Cyclica remarks, “residency at JLABS @ Toronto will provide Cyclica with world-class mentorship, extensive resources via the international Johnson & Johnson Innovation network, as well as access to JLABS’ large portfolio of early-stage pharmaceutical companies. Becoming a part of Johnson & Johnson Innovation and the JLABS @ Toronto ecosystem is critical to achieving our vision of becoming an integral utility platform in the pharmaceutical R&D value chain. Through Ligand Express™, and our continued focus on innovation, we believe that we can make lives easier for scientists so that they in turn can make lives better for patients by delivering safer and more effective medicines sooner than ever before.”
About Cyclica
Cyclica Inc. has developed, validated, patented and commercialized Ligand Express™, a cloud-based platform that screens small-molecule drugs against repositories of structurally-characterized proteins or ‘proteomes’ to determine polypharmacological profiles. Accordingly, Ligand Express™ identifies significant protein targets using an innovative structure-based and drug-centric technology, leverages artificial intelligence to determine the drug’s effect on these targets, and visualizes the predicted drug-protein interactome using bioinformatics and systems biology. The platform provides a unique panoramic view of a small-molecule, by identifying on- and off-target interactions that may be expected, as well as those that are unanticipated. By understanding how a small-molecule drug will interact with all proteins in the body, Ligand Express™ augments scientific investigation by elucidating mechanism-of-action, prioritizing lead candidates, understanding side effects, as well as determining new uses for existing drugs. For more information please visit: www.cyclicarx.com.
Media Inquires:
Naheed Kurji
President & CEO, Cyclica
naheed.kurji@cyclicarx.com