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Sanofi and Insilico will discover new drugs with artificial intelligence

Sanofi and Insilico will discover new drugs with artificial intelligence

The idea that artificial intelligence is the key to accelerating drug discovery and that in silico medicine is the future are the pillars of the $ 1.2 billion deal between France's Sanofi and Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine. All the details

A $ 1.2 billion deal. That's what France's Sanofi and Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine have done to accelerate the discovery of AI-based drugs.

Here's what they will do together.

WHAT INSILICO MEDICINE DOES

Insilico Medicine is a Hong Kong-based biotechnology company that combines genomics, big data analytics, and deep learning for in silico drug discovery. The company's goal is to accelerate drug discovery and development through the invention and continuous use of new artificial intelligence technologies.

The therapeutic programs under study range from cancer to fibrosis, from anti-infectives to immunology, up to senescence. In February, Forbes recalls, the company announced the first Phase 1 clinical trial for a drug developed entirely by artificial intelligence.

Insilico Medicine, South China Morning Post reports, is backed by private investors and funds including WuXi AppTec, Warburg Pincus, and Qiming Venture Partners.

WHAT THE AGREEMENT WITH SANOFI PROVIDES

Sanofi has chosen to partner with Insilico Medicine through a $ 1.2 billion partnership focused on AI-driven drug research.

Under the terms of the agreement, the multi-year, multi-target collaboration will leverage Insilico Medicine's AI platform (Pharma.AI) to jointly develop drug candidates for up to six targets. For now, no specific diseases have been identified.

The agreement also provides that Sanofi will pay Insilico Medicine a total of up to $ 21.5 million to cover upfront and target appointment expenses to benefit from the Pharma.AI platform and also to gain access to a team of interdisciplinary drug discovery scientists to identify, synthesize and advance high-quality therapeutic compounds to the stage of developmental candidates.

Further payments – reads the press release following the agreement – will be made in case of achievement of fundamental milestones for research, development and sales and could reach a total of 1.2 billion dollars. The collaboration also includes half- and up to two-digit royalties on products developed through the collaboration.

HOT COMMENTS

"We look forward to partnering with Insilico Medicine, the undisputed leader in drug discovery with artificial intelligence," said Changchun Xiao, China's head of research at Sanofi. "This collaboration will leverage our complementary capabilities, as well as the co-location of our scientific teams, to enhance the drug discovery efforts of the Sanofi Institute for Biomedical Research (SIBR), Sanofi's R&D center in China."

Even Insilico Medicine, through its founder and CEO, Alex Zhavoronkov, expressed enthusiasm, stating that "this close collaboration will allow Sanofi to immediately acquire the capabilities of one of the best AI startups, as well as enrich its drug discovery pipeline" .

THE FUTURE IS IN SILICON MEDICINE

In silico medicine, what Insilico Medicine deals with, uses technologies to create computer models that can assist in diagnosis, predict prognosis and simulate the effect of available therapies, in order to personalize treatment.

These technologies, explains theMinistry of Health , can be used to support the medical decision for a single patient (Digital Patient) or to ensure the safety and efficacy of new medical products, reducing the use of animal and human experimentation (In Silico Trials).

ALL THE ADVANTAGES

Among other advantages, in silico medicine will allow to respond to the increase in demand for health care, with significant economic benefits, substantial reductions in expenditure and improvement in the quality of services and care.

Suffice it to say that, according to the ministry, Digital Patient technologies alone could allow savings of over 30% on the cost of advanced medicine paths, favoring their diffusion with modest marginal costs, while in silico experimentation technologies could reduce the cost of development. and the regulatory valuation of an average of € 150 million for a new drug. And according to Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America , developing a drug costs $ 2.6 billion and takes an average of 10 to 15 years.

According to Forbes , who interviewed Zhavoronkov, Insilico and other companies using artificial intelligence to develop drugs have reduced the time and cost of the process by up to 90%, as well as increasing the success rate of drug candidates.

Estimates reported by SCMP predict that the AI ​​drug discovery market will grow to $ 5.6 billion by 2029.


This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/sanofi-e-insilico-scopriranno-nuovi-farmaci-con-lintelligenza-artificiale/ on Thu, 10 Nov 2022 09:43:40 +0000.