Modulus Discovery, Inc. (CEO: S. Roy Kimura, Ph.D., “Modulus”), an early stage global biopharmaceutical company, announced today the signing of research data transfer agreement on a specific drug target with Astellas Pharma Inc. (TSE: 4503, President and CEO: Kenji Yasukawa, Ph.D., “Astellas”).

Under the terms of the agreement, Modulus plans to design, evaluate and optimize lead compounds for this target to rapidly identify a novel clinical candidate through leveraging its cutting-edge computational drug discovery platform.

Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, Modulus owns all rights to any small molecules that Modulus develops based on the provided data set. Astellas will retain certain rights including a priority negotiation right for a certain period of time on clinical candidate compounds identified through Modulus’ research based on the provided data.

This agreement demonstrates Modulus’ unique approach to accessing and unlocking the value of existing preclinical opportunities in the industry which have been deprioritized or terminated due to technical reasons or changes in corporate strategy, and applying its proprietary computational technology platform and networked drug discovery model to efficiently deliver clinical candidates to market. Through this effort, Modulus hopes to further its mission to “accelerate the discovery of new medicines for patients and their families“ in need.

Comment from S. Roy Kimura, Ph.D., CEO, Modulus Discovery, Inc.
“We are very excited to have this opportunity to make full use of proprietary drug discovery data on one of the key drug targets from Astellas, a leading global pharmaceutical company contributing to the health of people around the world. By taking advantage of our mutual expertise within this novel drug discovery framework, we hope to continue to expand the value and clinical relevance of our drug discovery pipeline to efficiently deliver novel clinical candidates for patients in need.”