UK-based biotechnology startup Healx, has partnered with Japanese pharmaceutical company Ono Therapeutics, to jointly identify new disease indications with high unmet needs. The terms and financial details of the collaboration have not been disclosed.

The collaboration will leverage Healx’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform Healnet to find novel therapeutic indications for Ono’s proprietary assets. The platform will also provide the rationale behind the predictions and make recommendations, out of which Ono will select the diseases for further research and validation.

The partnership will allow Healx to expand its drug discovery capabilities from common disease indications to rare and unmet disease indications. It is also intending to partner with more pharmaceutical companies to focus on developing therapeutics for rare diseases. 

Founded in 2014, Healx is a biotechnology startup focused on repurposing drugs for rare diseases using its artificial intelligence (AI) platform. Its AI platform uses natural language processing (NLP) to extract disease knowledge from published and proprietary data. Healx claims it can predict new treatments in three months and advance the drug to the clinical stage in 24 months.