Sage Bionetworks said recently that it is partnering with the CHDI Foundation and Takeda Pharmaceutical to build computational models of Huntington's disease (HD) and central nervous system diseases, respectively.
Sage said will make publicly available the resulting models and data analyses the partnerships yield.
As part of the HD alliance, the CHDI Foundation and researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital will use computational tools to analyze tissue samples of the disease to identify key genes in its progression, and to assess the validity of several model HD systems.
Meantime, as part of the four-year Takeda agreement, Sage said it will build predictive computational models of CNS diseases, such as schizophrenia, and identify genes and biomarkers in patients with the disorders.
Robi Blumenstein, the president of CHDI management, noted in a statement that network modeling has "great potential to further our understanding of Huntington's disease."
He said that the partnership with Sage will create a platform that will allow investigators to "freely build and compare their network models using Sage Bionetworks' tools to the benefit of the entire HD research community."
Paul Chapman, general manager and head of the Takeda's pharmaceutical-research division, said the collaboration provides "an opportunity to further Takeda's goal of identifying targets for new therapeutics to treat the serious effects of CNS diseases where there is a high unmet need for patients all over the world."
Under the terms of the agreement, Takeda will provide Sage more than $3.6 million in research funding and fees over the four years.