The partnership will leverage Repurpose.AI ActivPred artificial intelligence (AI) drug discovery platform to discover drug candidates to treat COVID-19. The digital chemistry drug discovery platform uses AI based on fundamental chemistry to find nonobvious drugs against COVID-19 that have not been identified with traditional approaches.

The platform has previously been used to discover small molecule assets for the treatment of gastric, neurological, and weight disorders. The company's drug library contains approximately 4,000 drug compounds that have been approved for commercial use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and over 20,000 drug compounds that have been successfully tested in phase I clinical trials. All drugs have a full preclinical program and are known to be safe and well-tolerated in humans.

Scripps Research, through its drug development division, Calibr, will conduct COVID-19 screening molecules for drug repurposing as part of the partnership. Calibr previously established the ReFrame collection of previously approved compounds for COVID-19. Now, the collaboration with Repurpose.AI will assist in these efforts by characterizing compounds not identified to date using conventional repurposed drug screening approaches.

Scripps Research expands drug repurposing efforts for COVID-19
Scripps Research has pivoted its drug repurposing collection ReFRAME to find antiviral compounds effective against the novel coronavirus.