FORMA, Arpeggio Enter Collaboration

FORMA Therapeutics and Arpeggio Biosciences have entered a collaboration to utilize Arpeggio Biosciences’ proprietary technology to supplement FORMA’s analysis of the biological effects of its potential drug candidates. 

Arpeggio’s technology helps to identify the primary results of a drug’s impact on both biological and genetic activity. Unlike other techniques, this platform allows for systematic and rapid (within minutes of drug treatment) detection of response to treatment, providing information about a drug’s mechanism in complex cellular systems, resulting in better therapeutic insights. Data generated in this collaboration could enable FORMA to better understand the translational utility of its small molecule pipeline of therapeutics targeting cancer and other serious diseases.

“Using Arpeggio’s powerful combination of nascent RNA-sequencing combined with machine learning, we will be able to differentiate responses due to primary modulation of the therapeutic target, from secondary and tertiary effects,” said Steven Tregay, Ph.D., president, chief executive officer, and founder of FORMA Therapeutics.“ This will provide us invaluable information as we make critical decisions on candidates having potential for utility across a multitude of therapeutics diseases.”

“We are delighted to work with FORMA to expand their knowledge of potential drug candidates involved in gene control and protein homeostasis,” said Daniel Weaver Ph.D., chief executive officer of Arpeggio Biosciences. “Our platform is unique in its ability to understand proximal and critical biological impacts of a drug candidate, providing information that cannot be identified by any other means.”