AOI Biosciences и Toshiba получили патент на технологию предсказания аллостерических путей для разработки лекарств

AOI Biosciences, Toshiba Secure Patent for Allosteric Drug Discovery Technology KEY POINTS - AOI Biosciences and Toshiba secure patent No. 7908389 for SQBM+-based allosteric pathway prediction technology - Protein analysis method exceeds 80% accuracy in validation against known allosteric sites - Platform supports harder-to-drug protein targets, with use already started at pharmaceutical companies AOI Biosciences and Toshiba have obtained a Japanese patent for a technology that predicts allosteric pathways and promising allosteric sites in proteins as part of their collaboration in allosteric drug discovery, the companies said on Sept. 3. The patent, No. 7908389, was registered on Aug. 10. The invention is titled an "allosteric pathway prediction device," and the applicants are AOI Biosciences and Toshiba. The companies have been developing the technology jointly using Toshiba's quantum-inspired optimization solution SQBM+ to predict with high accuracy allosteric pathways linked to allosteric sites in proteins. They have conducted research and development on allosteric drug-discovery support technology using SQBM+ since 2022. The technology analyzes a protein's three-dimensional structural information to predict and analyze internal allosteric pathways, then uses those results to identify promising allosteric sites. In validation against known allosteric sites, the method achieved accuracy of more than 80%. The companies also searched for and evaluated compounds targeting allosteric sites predicted by the technology and confirmed activity against target proteins. In conventional small-molecule drug discovery, developers have mainly targeted active centers, or the functional core of disease-related proteins. That approach can be limited when proteins lack sites that readily bind small molecules or when targeting those regions raises the risk of side effects. Allosteric drug discovery instead targets sites that regulate an active center remotely and is seen as a way to broaden the range of potential drug targets. The companies said the technology is expected to make the search for allosteric sites more efficient, potentially reducing the time and cost required to identify them and opening new approaches to targets that have been difficult to address with existing drug discovery methods. The service has already been provided to pharmaceutical companies and is being used in drug discovery research settings. AOI Biosciences also plans to use the technology in its own drug discovery pipeline to pursue proprietary new drugs. AOI Biosciences, formerly known as Revorf Co., is based in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture, and is led by Representative Director Shinichi Sueda. The company operates testing, drug discovery and drug discovery support businesses, focusing mainly on infectious diseases and autoimmune disorders through a combination of data analysis and proprietary biotechnology. Toshiba, based in Kawasaki, describes SQBM+ as a high-speed combinatorial optimization solution implementing a simulated bifurcation algorithm invented during its quantum computing research. Toshiba has also tested the technology in applications including high-frequency stock trading, warehouse picking-route and shelf-layout optimization, energy management and materials development. Allosteric drug discovery has drawn attention as drug developers seek ways to modulate proteins that are difficult to target through conventional active sites. Identifying allosteric sites has been a technical bottleneck because the sites can be harder to detect from protein structures alone. © Copyright 2026 IBTimes JP. All rights reserved.