Nxera Pharma Co., Ltd. (“Nxera” or the “Company”) announces that it has joined OpenFold, a non-profit AI research consortium that promotes the development of open-source AI software tools for biology and drug discovery. Technology companies, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and NVIDIA, participate in OpenFold as supporting members and the consortium has expanded into an international ecosystem comprising numerous pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, technology companies and academic institutions, including Bristol Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk, Bayer and Roche.
OpenFold’s mission is provide researchers from academia and industry with access to powerful AI-enabled tools to create the medicines of tomorrow, to accelerate basic biological research, and bring new cures to market that would be impossible to discover without AI.
Nxera’s participation in OpenFold is aligned with the Company’s policy to enhance R&D productivity and business efficiency through the use of AI technologies, as presented at the Company’s 36th Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders held on 25 March 2026. Nxera’s proprietary NxWave™ platform combines the Company’s long-standing expertise in GPCR structure-based drug discovery, proprietary data, computational chemistry and AI-enabled approaches to advance drug discovery research.
Through its participation in the OpenFold Consortium, Nxera aims to:
- Create synergies with Nxera’s AI-driven computational chemistry and quantum-inspired biophysical approaches to accelerate progress from target validation and discovery to clinical development with highly differentiated and optimized candidates
- Continuously use and evaluate state-of-the-art open-source structural prediction models, including OpenFold and OpenFold3-preview
- Conduct GPCR target-focused performance evaluations and benchmarking through its computational chemistry team
- Contribute to future research and development directions through consortium governance meetings and receive technical support
Nxera is participating in the consortium as a user of its open-source tools and is not required to contribute any proprietary data or intellectual property to the consortium.
Patrik Foerch, Nxera’s Chief Scientific Officer and President of Nxera Pharma UK, commented: “Our participation in the OpenFold Consortium is highly aligned with the core design philosophy of the NxWave™ platform: the integration of structural biology, computational chemistry and AI. Access to an ecosystem that advances open-source AI drug discovery alongside world-class pharmaceutical companies and research institutions will further strengthen our AI-enabled drug discovery capabilities for GPCRs, a medically important and challenging target class. This initiative forms part of our broader strategy to improve R&D productivity and advance rapidly from target to clinical development with highly differentiated and optimized molecules, as we work towards achieving our 2030 vision.”