Medpacto said that it has signed a business agreement with HITS, specializing in artificial intelligence-based drug development.

Under the accord, the two companies will jointly secure and share technology and experimental data for new drug development, establish new business models and projects for new drug development, and other business cooperation.

HITS is a company that provides AI-based drug development platform services to pharmaceutical companies and research institutes using its AI-based Hits Platform to find new drug candidates suitable for target proteins.

HITS explained that the platform could increase the probability of discovering active substances and save time and money.

Medpacto, which is developing additional new drug candidates, in addition to Vactosertib, a TGF-β (beta) signaling inhibitor, plans to further accelerate the discovery and development of new drug candidates through collaboration with HITS.

“Recently, the use of AI-based drug development platforms in the process of new drug development is establishing itself as a new trend,” a company official said. “We expect that the collaboration with HITS will speed up the discovery of new drug candidates.”