A projected timeline for treatment and prevention of the novel coronavirus. Although we are living ... [ ] through uncertain times, we are also witnessing one of the greatest moments in science history. Scientists are breaking speed records in their race to develop treatments for the new coronavirus. Some are panning through old molecules hoping to find effective drugs. Others are applying the latest breakthroughs in synthetic biology to engineer sophisticated treatments and vaccines.

Variational AI Inc.'s bread and butter rests in novel drug discovery, specifically using artificial intelligence (AI) to compress the years-long preclinical process to perhaps a single year. But in the midst of a pandemic, even a year might be too long to find a treatment for COVID-19, according to CEO Handol Kim. "Even if we're able to collapse the front end, you still have five or six years of clinical trials and who knows if we need a drug in five or six years for COVID-19?" he said. "We thought, 'Well, the fastest way to do this is repurposing existing drugs.'" The pitch caught the interest of the Digital Technology Supercluster, which last month committed to spending $60 million of its $153 million budget to develop partnerships across its networks to address issues brought on by the pandemic.

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. For example, Abcellera Biologics Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Eli Lilly and Co., of Indianapolis, agreed to co-develop antibody products for treating and preventing COVID-19. The collaboration will build on Abcellera's pandemic response platform, developed under the DARPA Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) program, and Lilly's global capabilities for rapid development, manufacturing and distribution of therapeutic antibodies. Within one week of receiving a blood sample from one of the first U.S. patients who recovered from COVID-19, Abcellera screened more than 5 million immune cells looking for those that produced functional antibodies that helped the patient neutralize the virus and recover from the disease and identified more than 500 unique fully human antibody sequences.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AbCellera announced today that it has closed its Series A financing led by DCVC Bio, a Silicon Valley venture capital fund focused on deep technology ventures that lie at the nexus of artificial intelligence and biotechnology. AbCellera will use the USD $10 million financing to accelerate the growth of their therapeutic antibody discovery business, including investments to build capacity and integration of advanced technological capabilities spanning computation, protein engineering, and immune repertoire profiling. "With this financing, we will double-down on our partnership business that has enjoyed profitable, triple-digit growth over the past 3 years. In DCVC Bio, we have found the ideal funding partner to help us accelerate the success of our full-stack antibody discovery engine, one that integrates artificial intelligence with industry-leading microfluidic screening technology," said Carl Hansen, CEO of AbCellera. AbCellera's high-throughput single B cell screening platform and repertoire sequencing technologies enable discovery of large multidimensional data sets of valuable antibody sequences.