Talus Bioscience, Inc. (“Talus Bio”), an AI-enabled regulome therapeutics company, today announced a strategic collaboration with PRISM BioLab Co., Ltd. (“PRISM”) to accelerate the discovery and development of novel small-molecule modulators of transcription factor (TF) and protein-protein interaction (PPI) targets. The collaboration combines Talus Bio’s pioneering regulome profiling and AI-guided drug discovery platform with PRISM’s innovative chemistry.
This collaboration gives us an unprecedented opportunity to pursue targets that have resisted conventional drug discovery. Integrating PRISM’s chemistry with Talus’ regulome profiling and AI models allows us to see, in real time, how compounds reshape transcriptional networks in human cells. It’s a step-change in our ability to drug the undruggable.
— Alex Federation, PhD, CEO and Co-Founder of Talus Bio
Under the agreement, the companies will deploy PRISM’s proprietary small-molecule libraries in Talus Bio’s AI-guided regulome profiling screens to identify and optimize novel compounds against high-value TF and PPI targets. The collaboration aims to generate first-in-class chemical matter with direct functional effects on TF and PPI activity in live human cells. Talus Bio and PRISM will share the costs of discovery research and development and any profits generated from out-licensing and commercialization of discovered drug products.
We are delighted to partner with Talus on this exciting project. We at PRISM have developed chemistries for PPI targets, but because of the complex nature of these targets, it is often challenging to properly model protein-protein interactions in a biochemical assay. Even when we are successful, we can interrogate only one target at a time, whereas Talus can profile hundreds to thousands of these targets in parallel and in their native environment. We believe that the combination of PRISM’s chemistry platform and Talus’s regulome profiling platform has the potential to discover a plethora of inhibitors against previously “undruggable” TF and PPI targets and open a path for the development of novel therapeutics.
— Dai Takehara, PRISM’s President and CEO
This collaboration is a pivotal step in establishing a systematic, scalable strategy to address TF and PPI targets. Together, the companies are creating a unified platform capable of revealing and modulating regulatory mechanisms that have remained undruggable for decades. The approach opens the door to long-needed therapies for transcriptionally driven diseases that lie beyond the capabilities of traditional small-molecule approaches.