XtalPi, a global leader in AI drug discovery, announced a license agreement between Ailux Biologics, a division of XtalPi Inc., and Janssen Biotech, Inc.,(Janssen) a Johnson & Johnson company, on one of its proprietary biologics AI platforms. Under the agreement, Ailux Biologics grants Janssen and its affiliates a non-exclusive license to leverage its XtalFold™ platform for the discovery and engineering of biologics. XtalFold™ is a proprietary AI-based software suite that provides rapid and accurate structural insights to accelerate biologics innovation across multiple phases. The agreement was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

XtalFold™ utilizes sequence information alone to model the interaction between biomolecules, which forms the foundation of biotherapeutics like monoclonal antibodies. In rigorous benchmark studies, XtalFold™ achieved state-of-the-art performance in terms of overall success rate and the quality of hard-to-model regions like the antibody-antigen interface. Since its launch one year ago, XtalFold™ has been fully validated in more than 30 partner and internal programs, delivering highly impactful results in a variety of use cases, including antigen design, epitope identification, affinity maturation, pH-sensitivity engineering, and bispecifics design.

Yi (Alex) Li, VP of XtalPi and Head of Ailux Biologics, said: "Biologics are intricate machines that operate in three-dimensional space. XtalFold™ enables the visualization and design of biologics in 3D space in real time, which could take months using currently available experimental approaches. We are excited to share with Janssen this foundational technology, which has already proven transformative in-house."