Open Targets

Open Targets is a pioneering biotechnology startup founded in 2014, dedicated to utilizing human genetics and genomics data for systematic drug target identification and prioritization. Collaborating with industry leaders such as Bristol Myers Squibb, Genentech, GSK, Pfizer, and Sanofi, as well as academic partner EMBL-EBI and Wellcome Sanger Institute, Open Targets has established a large-scale, multi-year public-private partnership. The company's flagship offering, the Open Targets Platform (platform.opentargets.org), provides an easily accessible tool for researchers across various disciplines to identify and prioritize therapeutic targets for new medicines. Furthermore, Open Targets Genetics (genetics.opentargets.org) serves as a portal for investigating Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) data to aid in the identification of causal genes for prioritizing drug targets. This portal aggregates and merges genetic associations from curated literature and newly-derived loci from UK Biobank and FinnGen, integrating functional genomics data and employing statistical fine-mapping to resolve association signals. In addition to data integration, Open Targets complements its approach with large-scale systematic experimental methods to support target identification, prioritization, and validation, emphasizing its commitment to openly sharing data with the scientific community. Overall, Open Targets demonstrates great potential in leveraging cutting-edge genetics and genomics techniques to revolutionize drug target identification and enhance the development of new therapeutics.