Awarded: Innovate UK funding to design a new generation of cancer drugs
Cambridge, U.K., 9 January 2023 – Kuano Ltd announces today grant funding from Innovate UK for a £540,000 Project toward Streamlined and Targeted Design of NOTUM Inhibitors as Colorectal Cancer Drugs.
Bowel cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, with 17,000 deaths each year in the UK alone. Existing therapies suffer from the development of resistance. Kuano is looking to apply an innovative combination of quantum simulation and AI to produce a new generation of drugs targeting an enzyme (NOTUM) recently discovered to play a key role in cancer development. Like many diseases, a major cause of bowel cancer is malfunctioning or overactive enzymes - the chemical machines that accelerate chemistry within all living things.
Kuano demonstrated their platform can successfully reproduce existing drugs and have verified in the laboratory it can develop novel starting compounds for drug design. With this InnovateUK “Biomedical Catalyst 2022 Round 1: Industry-led R&D” grant Kuano will produce new cancer drug candidates that could represent a huge breakthrough in medical science and, ultimately, to society.
Kuano CEO, Vid Stojevic “The goal of Kuano is to develop a revolutionary quantum-led approach to drug discovery. I am very proud of the progress Kuano has made so far to validate our vision. It is exciting to have received InnovateUK support which will enable us to further develop our approach specifically for the colorectal cancer therapeutic area, paving the way to enable real world impact for colorectal cancer sufferers in the years to come.”
Head of Health Technologies at Innovate UK, Samana Brannigan “Biomedical Catalyst funding will enable Kuano to implement an innovative combination of quantum simulation and AI to produce a new generation of drug with the potential to improve cancer treatment for colorectal cancer patients. The funding will deliver further growth for the UK Life Sciences Sector and lead to significant global opportunities for the company.
