Kapoose Creek Bio, a B.C.-based biotech company that specializes in discovering new drugs from nature using AI, announced today an exclusive licensing and asset acquisition agreement with Adapsyn Bioscience, a chemical bioinformatics company based in Hamilton.

As part of the agreement, Kapoose Creek will gain access to Adapsyn’s cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology and natural products database to advance its drug discovery and development activities.

Four of Adapsyn’s top scientists, with expertise in chemistry, microbiology and computation, will join Kapoose Creek, which will also acquire Adapsyn’s core chemistry laboratory at McMaster Innovation Park.

Both companies already have close connections to McMaster: Adapsyn was spun out of McMaster professor Nathan Magarvey’s lab at the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research in 2016, and Kapoose Creek is headed by McMaster professor Eric Brown.

Kapoose is also supported by Global Nexus, a health innovation accelerator based at McMaster.

The move to MIP will further strengthen Kapoose Creek’s ties to the university and marks the expansion of its operations to Ontario.

“We are thrilled to be growing Kapoose Creek Bio’s footprint in Canada by formally planting roots at McMaster and expanding our team of experts,” Brown says.

The move firmly embeds Kapoose Creek in one of the country’s top innovation hubs, says Debbie Martin, McMaster’s associate vice-president of Real Estate and Partnerships.

“Hamilton is home to a vibrant network of leading innovators in the Canadian life sciences sector, and MIP is delighted to welcome Kapoose Creek Bio to our community,” Martin says.

“We are eager to see the company make strides in solving critical problems in natural product drug discovery, and MIP is the perfect place to make it happen.”

Kapoose Creek is working with two advanced chemical compounds that show therapeutic promise against neurodegeneration and neuropsychiatric diseases. With the support of Genome Canada and other McMaster researchers, the company is working toward optimizing both compounds for human dosing.

The agreement with Adapsyn will accelerate those efforts, Brown says.

“This new talent and infrastructure will allow us to rapidly build on the remarkable progress that we have already achieved to date,” he says.

“We are well on our way to developing some groundbreaking therapies derived completely from nature.”