xFOREST Therapeutics is a Japanese startup developing a platform for targeting disease-related RNA structures with small molecules.
The company’s platform enables the search for highly specific RNA-binders, empowering the rapid and efficient discovery of RNA-targeting drugs. Tens of thousands of RNAs and tens of thousands of compounds from libraries can be analyzed in parallel with a single nucleotide resolution.
The company’s platform is called FOREST (FOlded RNA Element profiling with STructure library). FOREST is a system that identifies target-binding RNA structures with a quantitative score using an RNA structure library. The datasets of FOREST enable an analysis of the binding properties of target molecules, comparisons of conditional interactions, and identifications of specific RNA structures. FOREST is composed of in silico and in vitro steps to generate the RNA structure library, multiplex affinity assay, and structure-wide evaluation by massively parallel detection on a microarray.
The company says some of the RNA-targeted drugs are expected to be effective in the treatment of serious hereditary diseases and are expected to be a new therapy for intractable diseases.
Founded in 2020, the company has already announced research and discovery collaborations with Daiichi Sankyo, Takeda, and the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University. Seed funding has been provided by ANRI (Japanese venture capital firm) and Takeda.