Evogene targets acute graft-versus-host disease with AI-designed drugs

Evogene has selected acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) as the target for its internal drug discovery program. The company aims to develop a potential first-in-class small-molecule treatment targeting a biological pathway involved in severe inflammation in patients who do not respond to steroids following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Acute GVHD affects approximately 30%-40% of transplant recipients, while mortality among patients with steroid-refractory disease can reach 50%. Treatment options remain limited, with ruxolitinib the only approved second-line therapy.

Using its ChemPass AI™ platform, Evogene explored a virtual chemical space comprising more than 110 billion molecules to design candidates with multiple drug properties optimized simultaneously. The company reports generating novel chemical scaffolds in several months, with candidates showing nanomolar potency, target selectivity, and favorable absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicology profiles. The molecules were also designed for synthetic feasibility.

Corey Cutler of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Robert Zeiser of University Medical Center Freiburg are advising on target selection and development strategy. Evogene is advancing its lead series toward IND-enabling studies as part of its strategy to build a proprietary therapeutic pipeline using its computational chemistry platform.