Sygnature Discovery has entered into a strategic collaboration with AI technology company DaltonTx to strengthen its computational drug discovery capabilities and support medicinal chemistry decision-making across customer programmes.

The partnership will integrate DaltonTx’s Dalton platform into Sygnature Discovery’s existing suite of computational tools alongside technologies including SygDesign, BullFrog AI and Iktos. The companies said the approach is intended to help scientists combine data, models and experimental results to inform decisions during drug discovery.

As part of the collaboration, Sygnature Discovery is carrying out a retrospective evaluation using a legacy oncology programme that has produced a small molecule clinical candidate now in Phase 1 development. The analysis is examining whether use of the Dalton platform could have enabled candidate selection with fewer synthesis cycles and more efficient decision-making.

Simon Hirst, chief executive officer of Sygnature Discovery, said: “AI in drug discovery continues to evolve rapidly, but we believe the future lies in combining the power of machine learning with the expertise and intuition of experienced scientists.”

He added: “By helping scientists make better-informed decisions earlier in the discovery process, we can reduce the number of compounds synthesised and tested, shorten DMTA cycles and accelerate progression toward candidate selection.”

DaltonTx said its platform combines drug discovery expertise with software engineering and artificial intelligence to create a unified system that incorporates data, predictive models and experimental findings across biologics and small molecule programmes.

The collaboration also addresses data governance in AI-enabled research. According to Sygnature Discovery, customer data and AI models are compartmentalised on a programme-by-programme basis to prevent proprietary information being used to train models supporting unrelated projects.

“Our approach ensures customers can access the latest AI-enabled technologies without their data being used to train models for the benefit of others,” Hirst said.

Sygnature Discovery said it plans to extend validation of the Dalton platform into live customer programmes as opportunities arise.