In the gold rush to bring artificial intelligence to the healthcare and biopharma industries, AI has long been pitched as a way to accelerate the pace of drug development and discovery. Sometimes vaguely and sometimes not, many companies have claimed their code can help early research get done quicker, deeper and cheaper. Now, Insilico Medicine may have hit pay dirt, demonstrating in a paper published in Nature Biotechnology that its computer networks could potentially shave years off of traditional hit-to-lead timelines. Over 21 days, the startup and its partners used its AI programs to conceptualize and generate 30,000 novel small molecules that may work against fibrosis. Within 25 more days, they had screened out and synthesized the six most promising compounds, tested them in vitro for selectivity and metabolic stability and had the lead candidate go on to show favorable activity in live mouse models.

This is Pharma's AlphaGo moment when the potential for AI to radically transform the normal operating procedures and business models of the entire industry becomes tangibly obvious to the public. In the case of the AI industry, this happened in 2015, when AI company DeepMind succeeded in developing the first AI capable of beating a human Go champion in Go. This study by Insilico Medicine may be an analogous game-changing moment for Pharma. While it typically takes 2-3 years to go from initial drug discovery to preclinical validation, Insilico Medicine has done this in less than 2 months end-to-end. This is 15 times faster than Pharma companies capable of conducting the most efficient R&D processes. In a landmark study published in Nature Biotechnology on September 2, 2019, Insilico Medicine showed that they generated and validated a novel small molecule in just 46 days, and designed the drug from scratch based on specified molecular properties in just 21 days.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Verge Genomics, a drug discovery company utilizing machine learning to develop new therapeutics, announced today that it has raised $32 million in Series A financing led by DFJ. New biotech investors WuXi AppTec's Corporate Venture Fund, ALS Investment Fund, Agent Capital, and OS Fund also participated in the round. The oversubscribed round brings Verge's total funding raised to-date to more than $36 million. With this round, Emily Melton of DFJ will join Verge Genomics' Board of Directors. Founded in 2015, Verge intersects machine learning, neuroscience, and experimental biology to accelerate drug discovery.

The longevity and biotechnology industries are focusing on aging in a big way, and it's beginning to show. The fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and regenerative medicine are putting their money on combating aging and age-related diseases, and the benefits are likely to be immense. While biotechnology and AI are relatively new concepts, the announcements of funding and collaboration yesterday by and between three companies are bringing those concepts that much closer to the forefront of medicine. Insilico Medicine, a Baltimore-based next-generation AI company specializing in the application of deep learning for target identification, drug discovery and aging research, yesterday announced a collaboration agreement with WuXi AppTec, a leading global contract research outsourcing provider based in Shanghai, China, serving the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device industries. "It's a big step not only for Insilico Medicine but for AI and the pharmaceutical industries," said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, CEO of Insilico Medicine, Inc.

The longevity and biotechnology industries are focusing on aging in a big way, and it's beginning to show. The fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and regenerative medicine are putting their money on combating aging and age-related diseases, and the benefits are likely to be immense. While biotechnology and AI are relatively new concepts, the announcements of funding and collaboration yesterday by and between three companies are bringing those concepts that much closer to the forefront of medicine. Insilico Medicine, a Baltimore-based next-generation AI company specializing in the application of deep learning for target identification, drug discovery and aging research, yesterday announced a collaboration agreement with WuXi AppTec, a leading global contract research outsourcing provider based in Shanghai, China, serving the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device industries. "It's a big step not only for Insilico Medicine but for AI and the pharmaceutical industries," said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, CEO of Insilico Medicine, Inc.

The longevity and biotechnology industries are focusing on aging in a big way, and it's beginning to show. The fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and regenerative medicine are putting their money on combating aging and age-related diseases, and the benefits are likely to be immense. While biotechnology and AI are relatively new concepts, the announcements of funding and collaboration yesterday by and between three companies are bringing those concepts that much closer to the forefront of medicine. Insilico Medicine, a Baltimore-based next-generation AI company specializing in the application of deep learning for target identification, drug discovery and aging research, yesterday announced a collaboration agreement with WuXi AppTec, a leading global contract research outsourcing provider based in Shanghai, China, serving the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device industries. "It's a big step not only for Insilico Medicine but for AI and the pharmaceutical industries," said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, CEO of Insilico Medicine, Inc.