Canadian-led alliance harnesses AI and open science to advance drug discovery

University Health Network (UHN), the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) are joining forces to lead a major international initiative to change how medicines are discovered using artificial intelligence (AI). Canadian partners have secured a $26-million grant through Horizon Europe’s Innovative Health Initiative, supporting the LIGAND-AI project — one of the largest global efforts in open-science drug discovery.

The global consortium, led by Pfizer and SGC, is advancing the project called LIGAND-AI, which brings together 18 public and private sector partners across nine countries. LIGAND-AI will generate open, high-quality datasets of protein-ligand interactions for thousands of human proteins, enabling the training of AI models to predict new drug-like molecules. This work supports Target 2035, a global mission to develop pharmacological tools for every human protein by 2035, catalyzing research and opening new paths to precision therapies. READ MORE