Reaction Biology partners with open science company to tackle rare paediatric brain cancer

Contract research organisation (CRO), Reaction Biology, has partnered with an open science drug discovery and development company, M4K Pharma, in the fight against diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) — a rare paediatric brain cancer.

This partnership will use a novel open science non-profit business model that encourages collaboration and sharing to help treat childhood diseases believed to be commercially prohibitive for conventional drug discovery companies.

Through the open science approach, monthly virtual meetings that can be joined by anyone will take place to discuss the progress of the project. Additionally, both companies involved are committed to publishing all of the structures and data generated, along with other contributors to the project.

Any profits that are made from the medicines discovered by M4K through this project will be reinvested into more open source research for other diseases through the Agora Open Science Trust.

Initially, research will focus on targeting the ALK2 kinase, which is mutated in at least 25% of DIPG cases. Later efforts may also include EZH2, a methyltransferase enzyme. The initial research partners with M4K include RBC, Charles River Laboratories, and The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.

“RBC has done spectacular work for us so far,” emphasized Jeff O’Meara, who leads the DIPG research project for M4K. “All of the partners are moving quickly. Children afflicted with DIPG have life expectancies of less than a year, so we all feel a great sense of urgency in this project.”

Haiching Ma, chief science officer at RBC, added: “RBC has over 1100 customers worldwide researching many diseases. But in this case, we’re happy to contribute our efforts to this new open model, since diseases like DIPG will not see treatments developed otherwise.”