La Jolla Labs Inc., Unravel Biosciences Inc., and Germany-based Ulm University have announced an ALS therapeutics collaboration combining artificial intelligence, RNA biology and clinical neuroscience to identify new drug targets for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The three-way research consortium was formed alongside a Phase I Discovery Award from the Longitude Prize on ALS, a global initiative supporting AI-enabled ALS drug discovery. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the arrangement is structured as a research alliance rather than a licensing or acquisition deal.
San Diego-based La Jolla Labs contributes RNA-targeting therapeutic expertise, including antisense oligonucleotide, siRNA and miRNA modalities, paired with cloud-native, AI-driven screening infrastructure. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Unravel Biosciences brings its Predictable Medicine platform, which integrates computational drug prediction with multimodal patient datasets to model disease on an individual basis. Ulm University supplies clinical and translational expertise in ALS and neurodegeneration to validate computationally nominated targets. The stated goal is therapeutic target validation for mechanisms that could be pursued via antisense oligonucleotide therapy, gene-directed approaches or small molecules.
The ALS therapeutics collaboration extends a now-familiar playbook for Unravel Biosciences, which has repeatedly paired its BioNAV and Predictable Medicine platforms with academic and industry partners across neurological disease. In January, Unravel partnered with Evogene Ltd. (Nasdaq: EVGN) to design brain-penetrant small molecules against a demyelination target for multiple sclerosis, and in February 2025 it launched a large-scale discovery collaboration with the nonprofit COMBINED Brain spanning more than 110 rare neurological disorders. Those deals, like the ALS effort, rely on Unravel’s role as target-discovery engine rather than a direct source of committed capital.