News & Events

Recently, Cylica, a Canadian biotechnology company invested by the China Canada Angel Alliance (CCAA for short) managed by Zhongguancun Dahe Capital, reported good news frequently. On February 1, Cyclica announced that Dr. Michael Palovich, a former senior medical person of GSK, had joined Cyclica as the Chief Scientific Officer, and would lead the growing drug research and development team of Cyclica to promote a sustainable and diversified drug pipeline; On February 9, Cyclica announced that it had co founded Perturba Therapeutics with Stagljar Laboratory of the University of Toronto to jointly develop drugs for protein protein interaction.

Dr. Michael Palovich, a former senior medical person of GSK, joined Cyclica as Chief Scientific Officer

Before joining Cyclica, Dr. Palovich had 24 years of drug discovery experience in GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and served as the senior director of GSK’s computer drug discovery. The drug discovery project led by him spans multiple therapeutic fields and has achieved very successful results. Most notably, the team led by Dr. Palovich developed the drug umeclidinium, which is approved by the regulatory authorities and used to treat various respiratory diseases. After joining Cyclica, Dr. Palovich will lead a growing drug research and development team to promote a sustainable and diversified drug pipeline.

Naheed Kurji, co-founder, president and CEO of Cyclica, said that, “In the past few years, I have been very honored to meet Michael. In addition to being a world-class leader in drug research and development, he is also a visionary. I have always lamented that his desire for future drug discovery and development is surprisingly consistent with Cyclica’s growth plan. Now it is increasingly clear that the future of drug research and development is in the hands of innovative biotechnology companies with data and AI technology. Michael is developing first-class drugs Our experience is just what we need from Cyclica. We continue to promote our strong drug discovery pipeline under Michael’s leadership “.

According to Dr. Palovich,   “I look forward to working with the innovative team of Cyclica to promote the vigorous development of their powerful drug discovery pipeline. Finally, through our large-scale AI platform, I believe that we will benefit patients with new drugs at an unprecedented rate. Drug discovery is not easy, and our ambition is also very ambitious. But I believe that with my drug research and development experience and a world-class team, Cyclica will become a global leader A biotechnology company. I am very excited about this opportunity “!

Cyclica and the University of Toronto announced the joint creation of Perturba Therapeutics to promote a new generation of tumor biotechnology

On February 9, Cyclica announced that it had co founded Perturba Therapeutics Inc. (hereinafter referred to as Perturba) with the Stagljar Laboratory of Donnelly Centre for Cellular&Biomolecular Research of the University of Toronto to develop drug asset pipelines for protein protein interactions.

Perturba integrates the AI drug design platform of Cyclica and the biochemical detection technology based on living cells of the Stagljar experimental group, so as to explore a wide range of drug targets more quickly. Perturba is already targeting protein protein interactions to precisely treat certain cancers. The company will initially focus on promoting EGFR selective inhibitors for non-small cell lung cancer and four projects targeting small GTPase.

Naheed Kurji, co-founder, CEO and President of Cyclica, said that, “Of all human disease related proteins, more than half are considered to be untruggable 。 Therefore, many patients suffering from serious diseases can only slowly wait for the emergence of innovative therapies. Others once thought it was a target that could not be made into medicine, but we thought it might also be full of potential. Perturba is an important step in the development of new cancer therapies. We are very happy to cooperate with Professor Stagljar and his world-class laboratory to promote our common vision. “.

Dr. Igor Stagljar, a researcher at the Donnelly Center, said that, “In the past two years, my laboratory has developed two highly influential live cell screening technologies: MaMTH-DS and SIMPL. They can be used to study the interaction between proteins and identify new drug molecules. When these two technologies are combined with Cyclica’s leading AI drug design platform, we will conduct drug discovery for highly intractable targets in an unprecedented manner on a large scale. I know Naheed and Cycl The ica team has demonstrated many proof points with our platform for many years. One of the projects is the EGFR three mutants that are resistant to Oshtinib. We will continue to develop and make progress in Perturba. Another project aims at the KRAS target of carcinogenesis, which makes us confident in drug discovery for other small GTP enzymes in Perturba “.

Dr. Rick Panicucci, senior vice president of BridgeBio and long-term consultant of Cyclica, will act as the non-executive chairman of Perturba to formulate the corporate strategy. Dr. Su Dharmawardhane Flanagan, Dr. Tony Hunter and Dr. Ming Tsao have been appointed members of Perturba’s Scientific Advisory Committee. Cyclica will provide initial funding for Perturba and will seek external financing as needed.

Dr. Panicucci said that, “I have been involved in drug discovery and development for more than 25 years. I can be sure that the way of drug research and development in the future will be very different from that in the past. During my six years as a consultant of Cyclica, I have witnessed the rapid and effective promotion of drug research and development by artificial intelligence and data. Perturba has opened up a new design manufacture test score for protein targets that have been ignored for a long time by integrating AI drug design and phenotype detection Analysis (DMTA) mode “.