5 January 2023 - - UK-based Cancer Research Horizons, the innovation engine of the world's largest private funder of cancer research, Cancer Research UK, is partnering with Turbine, a biotech leveraging its proprietary Simulated Cell platform to solve complex diseases, the company said.

The partnership will utilise Turbine's Simulated Cells platform and expertise to identify target patient populations who could benefit from CDC7 inhibitor therapy with Cancer Research Horizons' lead compound CRT'2199.

CRT'2199 originates from Cancer Research Horizons' Therapeutic Innovation.

CDC7 is a protein which plays a vital role in the regulation of cell division in normal cells. However, dysregulation of CDC7 can lead to the formation of cancer cells, and overexpression of this protein is correlated with poor clinical prognosis in diverse cancers of significant unmet patient need.

Despite its role in the progression and outcome in many cancers, no CDC7 inhibitors have progressed to Phase III trials, and a clear picture is lacking on what types of cancer could be effectively and safely treated by inhibiting CDC7.

The partnership aims to change this. Using Turbine's AI-powered simulation approach, Turbine and Cancer Research Horizons will inhibit CDC7 in digital cancer cells that represent different patient populations, in order to determine which cancer types and patient populations are most likely to respond to treatment with CRT'2199.

Turbine will receive a revenue share of Cancer Research Horizon's future revenues from the CDC7 inhibitor program upon successful commercialisation in exchange for identifying and validating a disease positioning strategy.

Turbine's Simulated Cell technology uses machine learning to train digital versions of cancer cells to behave in the same way that real cancer cells would, enabling simulations to show how cancer cells react to different triggers, such as transcriptomic changes and anticancer drugs.

Predictions based on this biological understanding provide invaluable insights at any point of the drug discovery and development process and can guide subsequent real-life experiments that increase the likelihood of success for a project.

Multiple companies have relied on Simulated Cells to inform their pipeline decision-making, including Bayer and two top-20 pharma companies that have leveraged the technology to generate multiple predictions that are currently in clinical validation.

Turbine is a Budapest-based biotech company that leverages computational simulations to solve complex questions in oncology. Turbine recently raised EUR 20m in series A funding to expand its offering.

Cancer Research Horizons is the innovation engine of Cancer Research UK the world's largest charitable funder of cancer research.