Optibrium Partners with FMC Corporation to Transform Agrochemical Discovery

Optibrium’s AI-powered discovery platform Cerella™ chosen by FMC to accelerate its agrochemical discovery pipeline

CAMBRIDGE, UK, and PHILIDELPHIA, US, 14 May 2024 – Optibrium, a leading developer of software and AI solutions for drug discovery, has signed a license agreement for its AI-powered discovery platform, Cerella™, with FMC Corporation (FMC), a global leader in crop protection. Under the agreement, FMC will implement Cerella to enhance its agrochemical discovery programmes and accelerate development of its pipeline.

The ability to accurately predict the best compounds to synthesise and which to progress to further studies, based on early experimental data, has the potential to dramatically improve the cost, time, and success rate of small molecule discovery. However, sparse datasets, coupled with the infeasibility of running all relevant experiments on all compounds of interest to determine their properties, make this difficult to achieve.

Part of Optibrium’s Augmented Chemistry® suite of AI solutions, Cerella has been proven to accurately ‘fill in the gaps’ in sparse datasets and predict the best compounds for synthesis and the most valuable experiments to prioritise, improving the return on investment in compound synthesis and testing. Cerella has demonstrated success across a range of applications, catalogued by several peer-reviewed publications and collaborations, including in agrochemicals(1), drug discovery(2), and flavours and fragrances(3). This latest collaboration with FMC further demonstrates Cerella’s ability to transform molecular discovery.

FMC's application of Cerella will be enhanced by an expanded license for Optibrium's StarDrop™ software for small molecule design, optimisation and data analysis, and collaborative support from Optibrium's expert scientists.

Dr. Matt Segall, CEO, Optibrium, said: “We are delighted that our robust AI and software platforms are supporting FMC, a global leader in crop protection, to enhance their discovery. FMC’s commitment to improving their processes with cutting-edge AI and machine learning approaches very much aligns with our own mission to revolutionise discovery with innovative scientific solutions, and we look forward to seeing the future impacts of this agreement.”

Dr. Seva Rostovtsev, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, FMC, added: “Our collaboration with Optibrium marks a pivotal moment in crop protection research. By integrating AI into our R&D efforts, we aim to revolutionise how we develop sustainable solutions for farmers and to enhance global food security.”

For further information on Optibrium or Cerella, please visit https://optibrium.com/cerella/, contact info@optibrium.com or call +44 1223 815900.

References

Optibrium. (2022) The power of AI applied to agrochemical bioactivity. Available at: https://optibrium.com/events/webinars/webinar-the-power-of-ai-applied-to-agrochemical-bioactivity/
Irwin, B.W. et al. (2021) ‘Deep imputation on large-scale drug Discovery Data’, Applied AI Letters, 2(3). doi:10.1002/ail2.31.
Mahmoud, S. et al. (2021) ‘Imputation of sensory properties using Deep Learning’, Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design, 35(11), pp. 1125–1140. doi:10.1007/s10822-021-00424-3.

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Optibrium

Katie Strickland

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Phone: +44 (0) 1223 815900