Elix Inc. has teamed up with Shionogi & Co. Ltd. to validate a retrosynthetic analysis model for drug discovery that will employ chemical reaction data from Shionogi to explore various routes to synthesizing new molecules.
Health tech firm Qure.ai Technologies Private Ltd. has secured a $40 million investment from investors including Novo Holdings and Healthquad to expand its portfolio of automated artificial intelligence (AI)-based imaging diagnostics. The company’s suite of technologies incorporates deep learning and AI to interpret radiology images such as X-rays, CTs, and ultrasounds in less than a minute.
Elix Inc. has teamed up with Shionogi & Co. Ltd. to validate a retrosynthetic analysis model for drug discovery that will employ chemical reaction data from Shionogi to explore various routes to synthesizing new molecules.
Roche Diagnostics International Ltd. is joining forces with Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) to develop two new digital pathology algorithms to support cancer assay use in clinical trials. Roche Digital Pathology will create an artificial intelligence (AI) based image analysis algorithm to assist pathologists in interpreting the company’s FDA-approved Ventana D-L1 (SP142) assay for urothelial carcinoma patients. BMS will use the algorithm to generate biomarker data from clinical trial samples.
Zeta Surgical Inc. has raised $5.2 million in seed funding to improve the accuracy and safety of image-guided surgical procedures through its Zeta neurosurgical navigation platform. Zeta CEO Jose Maria Amich told BioWorld the funding will also advance a non-invasive ultrasound system for imaging the brain and help complete initial clinical studies for its FDA approvals application.
After two years of developing its platform, Vesalius Therapeutics Inc. now has $75 million in its pocket from Flagship Pioneering to understand and treat the diseases that account for 90% of the world’s illnesses. To resolve this massive amount of biological and industry complexity, Doug Cole, Vesalius’ chairman and co-founder and Flagship’s managing partner, noted the distinction between illness and disease. “Illness is what bothers you, it’s the experience of being sick and what the doctor might find when you’re examined,” Cole told BioWorld. “Disease is the mechanistic problem with the biology underlying the illness.”
Astrazeneca plc has announced two significant R&D deals with Scorpion Therapeutics Inc. and Benevolentai Ltd., which it hopes will sharpen its research into cancer, lupus and heart failure. Both of the deals involve artificial intelligence (AI) as a way to increase the probability of success during the clinical development process and reduce the chances of costly trial failures.
Inveniai LLC and Kyowa Kirin Co. Ltd. have expanded their partnership a second time, inking their most recent multiple drug discovery agreement. The multiyear deal will see the duo discover novel targets and treatments for therapeutic areas across Kyowa Kirin’s portfolio and areas of interest using Inveniai’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform.
A new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered drug discovery startup, Protai Bio, has emerged from stealth mode following an $8 million seed round led by Grove Ventures and Pitango Healthtech that will see the new company develop a platform to accelerate drug discovery.
There are many companies using artificial intelligence to aid drug development, with a seemingly overwhelming number of “world firsts” being claimed in this quickly evolving field. After signing a three-year neurology drug development deal with Eli Lilly and Co. worth up to $706 million in July, Verge Genomics is also making waves and just raised $98 million in series B financing to support development of its own AI drug development technology.
