Samjin Pharmaceutical has been selected by the Korean government to lead a four-and-a-half-year, 12.75 billion won ($9.2 million) project to develop a drug discovery platform that combines quantum computing with AI.

The company will build out its Q-DrugX (Quantum Drug Exploration) system, designed to run high-precision binding simulations and generative AI modeling, with the aim of unlocking targets previously considered “undruggable.” 

Samjin said the platform is built to bypass bottlenecks in binding prediction and candidate selection that often stall hard-to-target programs, aiming to speed up discovery while improving accuracy.

The consortium includes Quantum Intelligence and Namu ICT on target discovery, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology on molecular optimization, and Seoul National University Hospital on preclinical and early clinical validation. Samjin will oversee candidate synthesis, preclinical packages and commercialization planning.