Mankind Pharma partners Denovo Sciences for AI-led drug discovery

New Delhi, Mankind Pharma Ltd on Wednesday announced a strategic collaboration with Denovo Sciences to launch an AI-led drug discovery programme.

The partnership marks an important step in the company's focus on innovation-driven and technology-enabled research and development, Mankind Pharma said in a statement.

The collaboration is focused on three key goals -- reducing early drug discovery timelines, improving the quality of lead candidates, and ensuring that only candidates with the strongest development potential move ahead, it added.


By using computational precision in the early stages of discovery, both partners aim to reduce the time and resources spent on candidates that may not succeed later, the company said.

The partnership will bring together Mankind Pharma's strong R&D capabilities, experimental validation infrastructure, and clinical development expertise with Denovo Sciences' proprietary platform for AI-driven molecular generation and prioritisation.

"Together, both organisations will work under a human-in-the-loop model, where AI generates and evaluates molecular candidates while scientific experts guide, validate, and refine the results at every stage," the statement said.

Faster discovery cycles and better candidate selection can help bring differentiated, effective, and accessible therapies to patients sooner, it added.

"Drug discovery has always been a long and uncertain journey, and that uncertainty has real consequences for patients. Our collaboration with Denovo Sciences is about using the best available technology to make this journey faster and more precise," Mankind Pharma COO Arjun Juneja said.

He further said, "AI gives us the ability to explore a much larger molecular space than traditional methods, while the human-in-the-loop model ensures that scientific rigour remains central to every decision. This is the kind of R&D investment we believe will shape Mankind Pharma's next chapter."

Denovo Sciences Inc CEO Hovakim Zakaryan said partnering with Mankind Pharma is a natural fit for the platform that Denovo Sciences has built, which is designed to work alongside experienced drug discovery experts to generate better candidates faster.

"Mankind Pharma brings deep R&D expertise and a strong commitment to making medicines more accessible. Together, we are using our proprietary AI technologies where they can create the greatest impact at the earliest stage of the discovery process, where the right decisions save the most time," Zakaryan said.