PRISM BioLab and Receptor.AI Announce Drug Discovery Collaboration Agreement
— Advancing the Discovery of Novel Therapies and Building an Integrated Drug Discovery Platform by Combining PPI Science with AI —
TOKYO, March 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- PRISM BioLab Co., Ltd. ("PRISM") and Receptor.AI Inc. today announced that they have entered into a drug discovery collaboration agreement (the "Collaboration") to develop an integrated, AI-navigated, physics-guided platform for the discovery of orally available small molecules targeting intracellular protein–protein interactions (PPIs), membrane proteins, and complex receptor systems.
The Collaboration unites PRISM's PepMetics® chemistry — conformationally rigid, three-dimensional small molecules engineered to mimic α-helix and β-turn motifs — with Receptor.AI's physics-informed, multi-objective AI navigation engine. By integrating their technologies, the companies aim to generate innovative hit, lead and clinical candidate compounds against PPI and membrane-protein targets that have proven challenging for conventional small molecule drug discovery, with an initial focus on metabolic diseases, including obesity.
The Collaboration will initially focus on one selected receptor target for metabolic disease. Receptor.AI will carry out molecular design using the combination of PRISM's chemical space and Receptor.AI's design algorithms. In parallel, the companies will jointly engage pharmaceutical partners interested in utilizing the combined capabilities of both technologies.
The Collaboration aims not only to generate clinical candidates—typically the goal of joint research — but also to showcase the power of combined technologies and to acquire specialized know‑how, which will be the basis for proposals to potential partner companies, enabling the expansion of future collaborative opportunities.
"We are very pleased to partner with Receptor.AI on this exciting project," said Dai Takehara, President & CEO of PRISM BioLab. "We have developed PepMetics® Technology, a highly effective drug discovery platform targeting PPIs, and possess a unique peptide‑mimetic small‑molecule library, the PepMetics® Library. We believe this library can be applied not only for intracellular PPI drug discovery but also for membrane proteins, which are not easily targeted by small molecules. With Receptor.AI's AI‑based molecular design technologies ranging from peptides to small molecules, we expect the potential of the PepMetics® Library to expand even further."
"We're excited to partner with PRISM BioLab to move intracellular and receptor-driven discovery from 'screening harder' to navigating smarter," said Dr. Alan Nafiiev, Founder & CEO of Receptor.AI. "PRISM contributes a high-quality, structurally constrained virtual chemical space designed for practical progression. We're bringing QuorumMap — our chemical space navigation engine — together with structure- and physics-informed modeling and multi-objective optimization to continuously reallocate compute and experimental focus toward the compounds most likely to translate: not just binders, but candidates that balance selectivity with the permeability and stability needed for oral exposure. The goal is a repeatable, decision-driven loop that turns difficult intracellular biology into actionable chemical hypotheses and ranked molecules ready for synthesis and testing."
PRISM and Receptor.AI share a common philosophy of "pursuing new approaches to drug discovery"—creating innovative therapeutics more rapidly, rationally, and with scientific rigor. Through this Collaboration, the companies aim to create synergies by mutually adopting state‑of‑the‑art drug discovery methods.
About Receptor.AI
Receptor.AI, a U.S.-based TechBio company, is reshaping preclinical drug discovery through its advanced generative AI platforms. With a strong technology stack, proven results, and collaborations with Japanese pharmaceutical leaders such as Ono Pharmaceutical, it exemplifies the growing shift toward computational and data-driven R&D in biotech.
At the heart of Receptor.AI's success is its multiplatform AI ecosystem, designed to accelerate the identification and optimization of novel therapeutics. This modular, end-to-end infrastructure addresses some of the most pressing challenges in drug discovery:
Built on extensive experience and over 40 successful joint discovery projects, Receptor.AI's multiplatform ecosystem empowers researchers to design small molecules, peptides, and induced proximity agents with unprecedented speed and accuracy. By focusing on validated, modular workflows that integrate seamlessly into existing R&D processes, Receptor.AI has become a trusted partner to big pharma companies and academic institutions worldwide.
About PRISM BioLab
PRISM BioLab is a discovery and development biotechnology company utilizing proprietary PepMetics® technology to discover orally available small molecule inhibitors of protein-protein interaction (PPI) targets and transform lives of patients suffering from cancer, autoimmune, fibrosis and other diseases. PepMetics® are a unique class of small molecules that mimic three-dimensional structures of alpha-helix and beta-turn, the peptide structures commonly found in intracellular PPI interphases and receptor-ligand interactions. By combining proprietary chemistry, know-how around PPI targets and structure-based design, PepMetics® technology can deliver inhibitors of challenging PPI targets. The technology holds promise to expand the field of drug discovery by turning previously undruggable PPIs into targets readily druggable with small molecules and by generating oral small molecule alternatives for injectable biologics.
SOURCE PRISM Biolab
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