The importance of artificial intelligence and machine learning continues to be acknowledged by drug development companies. Recently, to help accelerate the discovery of therapies to treat COVID-19, several deals have been forged to deploy those tools.
LONDON – Exscientia Ltd. has closed a $60 million series C funding, attracting Novo Holdings as new investor to lead the round, which will enable the artificial intelligence (AI) specialist to progress its first in-house program to the clinic before the end of 2020.
Nineteengale Therapeutics is a new joint venture that was launched to fill a large void. Cyclica Inc., along with its partner, Neurotheryx Canada Ltd., both of Toronto, created Nineteengale to find and develop cannabinoid-inspired drugs for bipolar disorder, anxiety and pain management.
The importance of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) has not been lost on drug development companies. Recently, to help accelerate the discovery of therapies to treat COVID-19, several deals have been established to help deploy those tools.
South Korea's Bridge Biotherapeutics Inc. has enlisted San Francisco-based AI drug discovery shop Atomwise Inc. to help it identify up to 13 small-molecule inhibitors of Pellino proteins and other targets in an effort to develop new therapies for inflammatory diseases. Atomwise stands to receive an up-front payment of undisclosed value, as well as milestone and royalty payments under terms of the deal. Presuming success, it estimates the partnership's payoff could reach up to $1.08 billion.
Multiple tactics employed by the biopharma industry to improve the recruitment and retention of participants in clinical trials seem to be paying off. More than three of four (77%) studies now fully enroll on or ahead of schedule, according to researchers at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD), reporting in the January/February Tufts CSDD Impact Report on global recruitment performance benchmarks.
When Zebiai Therapeutics Inc.’s CEO, Rick Wagner, went about naming his new machine learning company, he wanted it to connote something dramatic that displayed the company’s potential to reach into the seemingly boundless future technology had unlocked.
The next wave of drug discovery is being enabled by artificial intelligence (AI). This fact has not been lost on investors, who are keeping a close watch on emerging biopharma companies that are using AI and machine learning to enable the discovery of next-generation medicines.
For biopharma, 2019 can be described as a terrific year – with a few asterisks. The financial markets were flourishing, with venture capital dollars, in particular, flowing to the sector, while dealmaking reached historic proportions. Meanwhile, scientific breakthroughs led the way as cell and gene therapies gained ground, the first signs of success emerged with new technologies like CRISPR and the long-awaited promise of genomics found its way to the front lines of health care.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are already being actively used in drug discovery to evaluate potential binding of small-molecule drugs to proteins, but there's potential for the technologies to be used on the development side as well, especially in hard-to-treat diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.
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