Celsius Therapeutics, a company focused on the discovery and development of precision therapeutics for patients with autoimmune diseases and cancer, has collaborated with United States-based Janssen Biotech Inc, it was reported yesterday.

According to the terms of the contract, Celsius Therapeutics will implement its proprietary single-cell genomics and machine learning platform to identify predictive biomarkers of response from Janssen's VEGA study, a Phase 2a clinical trial assessing the efficacy and safety of combination therapy with guselkumab and golimumab in patients with ulcerative colitis.

Celsius will receive undisclosed payments along with potential milestones based on the use of biomarkers identified in the partnership. Celsius retains the ability to merge the clinical and sample-level data generated from the study into its increasing database of patient and single-cell genomic information, and will further interrogate the data for its own target and drug discovery efforts.