The Herman Trend Alert

October 16, 2019

Discovering New Drugs with AI

What if we could develop and test a new drug in just days? Clearly, that shift would revolutionize drug development and production and reduce Pharma costs from billions to thousands. Recently, an AI Pharma start-up Insilico Medicine developed a potential new drug in only 46 days! Artificial intelligence technologies hold the promise for speeding up the process of drug discovery and development and making it more cost-effective---saving billions of dollars and years of time---not to mention the possible side effects suffered by the test subjects. We have highlighted three of the many companies operating in this burgeoning space.

Technology to the Rescue

Happily, there are many technologies and companies dedicated to changing the status quo. They have discovered several ways to apply technology to shorten the drug-testing process, including using online platforms to find participants and using human organs-on-chips or in silico trials. All of these technologies are speeding up the process, saving thousands of dollars and the suffering of patients.

Antidote: mining clinical trials

Based in the US and the UK, Antidote facilitates medical researchers in clinical trials finding the patients they need more quickly. It seems like a Tinder for clinical researchers and patients. Antidote combines proprietary technologies, data, and well-established business models to transform the way patients and researchers find each other.

Atomwise: already demonstrating tangible results

This well-known company in the drug-discovery industry helps Pharma reduce the costs of medicine development by using supercomputers to forecast which potential medicines will work. The company has a "deep convolutional neural network," AtomNet, capable of screening more than 100 million compounds each day. In 2015, Atomwise found two candidate drugs which may significantly reduce Ebola infectivity in less than one day!

Turbine.AI: concentrating on cancer drugs

This AI solution designs personalized treatments for any cancer type or patient faster than any traditional healthcare service. This brilliant technology models cell biology on the molecular level and identifies the best drug to target a specific tumor. Moreover, by performing millions of simulated experiments each day, it identifies complex biomarkers and designs combination therapies.

Only the beginning

These three companies represent a fraction of those pursuing this worthwhile research. We are only starting to see the wide-ranging medical breakthroughs and solutions that the application of AI in seeking and testing new allopathic medications can offer. This field promises to save lots of money for Pharma, save many lives and much suffering, and make a lot of money for those smart enough to invest in these technologies.

Special thanks to The Medical Futurist for their coverage of this important field.

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