Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan; President and CEO: Gyo Sagara; “Ono”) today announced that it has entered into a drug discovery collaboration agreement with MOLCURE Inc., (Kanagawa, Japan; CEO: Ryu Ogawa; “MOLCURE”), to discover and develop innovative antibody drugs for multiple targets utilizing MOLCURE’s AI-driven platform technology.

 Under the terms of the agreement, MOCLURE will discover and identify antibodies or molecules for multiple targets of interest selected by Ono, using MOLCURE’s proprietary AI-driven platform technology. Ono will obtain option rights to exclusively and globally develop and commercialize therapeutic antibody drug candidates generated through the collaboration. Ono will pay to MOLCURE an upfront payment and research funding, and success-based milestone payments on research, development and commercialization, as well as tiered royalties based on global net sales.

 “We are actively working to create biologics like antibodies in order to address unmet medical needs. We appreciate MOLCURE's AI-driven platform technology which enables us to design functional antibodies for targets that are difficult to generate with conventional technologies and are pleased to have the opportunity to collaborate with MOLCURE,” said Toichi Takino, Senior Executive Officer / Executive Director, Discovery & Research of Ono. “We believe that this new collaboration will accelerate our biologics drug discovery efforts and bring innovative drugs for patients as soon as possible.”

 “We are delighted that Ono appreciates MOLCURE’s capabilities and has chosen us as a partner,” said Dr. Ryu Ogawa, CEO of MOLCURE. “We are pleased to support Ono in accelerating their drug discovery programs to generate antibody drugs as quickly as possible with our AI-driven platform technology. We hope that our partnership will create innovative drugs that will improve the prognosis and quality of life for patients around the world.”