Pharos I Bio Selected for National AI Drug Development Project... Developing IRP2-Targeted Cancer Therapy

Selected for Three Government R&D Projects, Including Ministry of Health and Welfare and National New Drug Development Consortium
Expanding the Use of Chemiverse

Pharos I Bio announced on August 6 that, together with Jactus Onco, it has been selected for the AI-based candidate compound discovery project under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups' "2026 Pharmaceutical and Bio Venture Collaboration-Based Technology Development Program."

Pharos I Bio company logo image. Pharos I Bio

The objective of this project is to identify AI-driven IRP2 (iron regulatory protein 2) inhibitor candidate compounds. The two companies will conduct joint research over 24 months and receive a total research grant of 1 billion won. Of this, Pharos I Bio will be allocated 400 million won.

Pharos I Bio will use its AI drug development platform, Chemiverse, to handle candidate compound design and optimization, while Jactus Onco will be responsible for compound synthesis, biological validation, and preclinical studies. The companies plan to implement an AI–Wet Lab approach, validating AI prediction results through experiments and feeding the outcomes back into AI training. This will help secure preclinical candidate compounds and data suitable for technology transfer.

Including this project, the company has been consecutively selected for three government R&D programs this year, organized by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the National New Drug Development Consortium, and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. In this research, the companies intend to first develop candidate compounds with an initial indication of colorectal cancer, and are considering expanding the application to other solid tumors such as lung cancer and breast cancer in the future.

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