Google Cloud BrandVoice: From Emergencies To Moonshots, Can AI Help Find The Next Blockbuster Drug?

Deep-learning technology allows Toronto-based biotech firm Cyclica to help researchers, companies and governments do drug discovery in record time--including in the COVID-19 crisis. On January 27, 2020, there were still fewer than 1,000 confirmed reported cases of SARS-COV2 in the world, confined mostly to China, though the first positive tests had also appeared in the U.S. state of Washington and would soon follow in Northern Italy. On that same day, the leadership team of Cyclica--a data-driven, drug discovery biotech company based in Toronto--met to discuss how it might get involved. Within a week, discussions had commenced with China's Institute of Materia Medica about sharing Cyclica's AI-enabled platform, Polypharm DB, platform to begin isolating potential therapies through machine learning. On March 5, both sides formalized their partnership, and days later, anticipating the coming quest for inoculations and remedies, Cyclica made the platform available pro bono to any researchers working on treatments for what would soon be widely known as COVID-19.