AI (Artificial Intelligence) pharmaceuticals refer to the use of artificial intelligence technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and deep learning to assist in drug discovery, drug management, efficacy analysis, and other processes, with the aim of shortening trial cycles, saving costs, and improving trial success rates.
Since the first proposal of AI technology in 1956, as of 2022, according to Deep Pharma Intelligence, nearly 800 AI pharmaceutical companies have been established worldwide, with a total investment of tens of billions of dollars. Today, this trend has not yet faded.
In August alone this year, 15 AI pharmaceutical companies announced the completion of a new round of financing. Recently, multinational pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk announced a cooperation agreement with AI pharmaceutical company Valo Health, with a total amount of more than 2.7 billion U.S. dollars. With such momentum, can AI pharmaceuticals take off?
MNC ramps up AI pharmaceutical layout
On September 26, Novo Nordisk reached a cooperation agreement with Valo Health, and Novo Nordisk will use Valo's large human data set and AI-driven calculations to discover and develop innovative therapies for heart metabolic diseases, with a total cooperation amount of 2.7 billion U.S. dollars.
Specifically, the cooperation between Novo Nordisk and Valo will use the key joint capabilities of human data and genetics to develop innovative therapies for heart metabolic diseases. Valo can identify and validate preclinical new drug targets, develop candidate drugs targeting these targets, and help predict the safety and efficacy of compounds. Novo Nordisk and Valo also plan to use the latter's Opal computing platform to discover and develop three preclinical drug discovery projects for cardiovascular diseases.
The Opal computing platform is a comprehensive, end-to-end drug discovery and development tool that relies on high-quality, proprietary, and differentiated data resources and specialized artificial intelligence technologies to redefine the drug development process from start to finish.
In fact, many multinational pharmaceutical companies have made AI pharmaceuticals an important part of their strategic layout. AstraZeneca has been cooperating with AI and data-driven companies since 2017. In 2019, AstraZeneca reorganized its structure and created a data science and AI department, which is a team composed of data scientists, bioinformaticians, machine learning experts, etc., aimed at enhancing basic research, drug development, and other related research through data and artificial intelligence algorithms. With the assistance of AI pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca has developed new drugs and new targets, and improved the success rate of drug development.
In September this year, Alexion, a subsidiary of AstraZeneca, reached a cooperation agreement with Verge Genomics. Verge Genomics is a biotechnology company that uses artificial intelligence to develop therapies for neurological diseases. The two jointly developed new drug targets for neurodegenerative diseases and neuromuscular diseases.
In addition, AstraZeneca is also actively deploying AI diagnosis and disease management to enhance its capabilities in precision medicine and chronic disease management. These measures have made AstraZeneca a leader in the field of AI pharmaceuticals.
Similarly, in 2017, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) reached a cooperation agreement with Insilico Medicine to jointly develop new biological targets and molecules. The following year, GSK established a powerful AI/ML (machine learning) team of 120 people. In 2020, GSK established a dedicated research center to discover new drugs for cancer and other diseases using AI.
Also in 2020, GSK, NVIDIA, AstraZeneca, and the UK National Health Service (NHS) established a new partnership to build the UK's most powerful supercomputer and use it for AI research in healthcare.
In April 2022, GSK reached a cooperation agreement with PathAI to advance clinical trials and drug development for oncology and NASH (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). PathAI mainly develops AI-driven digital pathology tools to analyze tissue samples and identify specific biomarkers.
In February 2023, GSK reached a coop...
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