Curi Bio Acquires Dana Solutions
July 23, 2020 10:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Curi Bio, a leading developer of human iPSC-based platforms for drug discovery, has acquired Dana Solutions, a pioneer in the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to in vitro cell-based assays.
“Curi Bio is developing human-relevant platforms integrating human cells, systems, and data to accelerate the discovery of new medicines,” said Curi CEO Michael Cho. “With the acquisition of Dana’s AI/ML technologies for cell-based assays, Curi is now uniquely positioned to offer pharmaceutical companies an integrated platform leveraging predictive human iPSC-derived cells, tissue-specific biosystems, and AI/ML-enabled phenotypic data insights.”
Curi’s human iPSC-based platforms help drug developers build predictive and mature human iPSC tissues—especially for the discovery, safety testing, and efficacy testing of new therapeutics—with a focus on cardiac, skeletal muscle, and neuromuscular disease models. Curi seeks to de-risk and expedite the development of new drugs by providing human-relevant preclinical data and decreasing the industry’s dependence on animal models, which often fail to translate to humans.
Through the acquisition, Curi will gain access to Dana’s AI/ML-based platforms including PhenoLearn™, a deep learning platform for modeling cell and tissue phenotypes; Pulse™, an automated platform for contractility analysis of beating cardiomyocytes; and PhenoTox™, a patented deep learning platform for predictive safety pharmacology.
Through a collaboration with the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI), Dana has previously received funding from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to validate PhenoTox™ for the predictive assessment of drug-induced structural cardiac toxicity. Curi and Dana will continue the FDA project following the acquisition. Dana’s SaaS platforms will continue to operate until the expiration of existing customer contracts.
Curi Chief Science Officer Dr. Nicholas Geisse commented, “We are building best-in-class models of human diseases using human iPSC-derived cells and physiologically-relevant biosystems. With Dana’s deep learning tools, now we can apply AI/ML-based phenotypic screening to our models to detect patterns in multidimensional phenotypic data at scale.”
By integrating Curi’s existing portfolio of human iPSC technology products with Dana’s PhenoLearn™ and PhenoTox™ deep learning platforms, Curi aims to help pharma customers bring safer, more effective medicines to market in less time, at lower cost.
The detailed terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About Curi Bio
Curi Bio provides a seamless, bioengineered integration of human cells, systems, and data to accelerate the discovery of new medicines. Curi’s suite of human stem cell-based products and services enable scientists to build mature and predictive human iPSC-derived tissues, with a focus on cardiac, musculoskeletal, and neuromuscular models for discovery, safety testing, and efficacy testing of new therapeutics. By offering drug developers an integrated platform comprising highly predictive human iPSC-derived cells and tissues and clinically-relevant data, Curi aims to dramatically accelerate the discovery and development of safer, more effective medicines.