Hamburg, Germany February 23, 2023 — CrystalsFirst, a leading provider of small-molecule drug discovery services, announced today the signing of a drug discovery service agreement with
Akttyva Therapeutics. Under the terms of the agreement, CrystalsFirst will apply its proprietary high-performance X-ray crystallography and soaking technology platform to provide protein production and structural biology services on novel protein targets selected by Akttyva’s in building its pipeline. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

“CrystalsFirst’s innovative solutions to structural biology and fragment-based drug discovery are valuable components for ramping up our proprietary drug discovery efforts against a selected portfolio of innovative targets,” said Katya Tsaioun, PhD, Co-founder and Board member of Akttyva”. Akttyva’s first target is a small molecule activator of MAP kinase MK2 and CrystalsFirst technology will allow it to strengthen its suite of proprietary assays and build a pipeline of therapeutics to treat conditions associated with vascular leak. Dr. Tsaioun continued, “this partnership will enable Akttyva to expand its pipeline to other novel targets involved in vascular leakage. We look forward to partnering with CrystalsFirst to jump-start Akttyva’s proprietary drug development efforts as we continue to build a robust and explainable AI-assisted platform for drug discovery against unexplored targets underlying unmet needs of patients.”

“We are excited to be selected by Akttyva, a discovery stage biotech company focused on unlocking the full therapeutic potential of the human kinome to develop new treatments,” said Dr. Serghei Glinca, Chief Executive Officer of CrystalsFirst. We look forward to applying our high-quality protein production expertise and SmartSoak® technology to rapidly deliver high-quality hits and leads as part of Akttyva’s structure-first approach to discovering and developing small-molecule modulators of protein targets.”