Brad Howell’s Post

🚀 Is #AI the future of drug development? AI #startups are transforming drug development, drastically reducing time and costs. With over €16 billion invested, the potential is undeniable. 🌎 While the USA and UK lead, this global shift promises faster, safer treatments. 🗞️ Read the full article through the link in the comments – thanks, Plattform Life Sciences, for publishing this insightful piece by Dr. Fei Tian and Andreas Kastenbauer. 👏🏼 🔗 Xaira Therapeutics, Genesis Therapeutics, Exscientia, BenevolentAI, Relay Therapeutics, BioXcel Therapeutics, Inc., Biofourmis,

Digital twins of cells to precision medicine 🚀 Exciting news in AI-driven drug discovery! French startup DeepLife has secured a $10M Series A funding round to advance their platform, which creates "digital twins" of cells. This innovative approach enables pharmaceutical companies to simulate drug effects on cellular models, accelerating the repurposing of existing medications for new therapeutic uses. By leveraging AI to predict cellular responses, DeepLife is paving the way for more efficient and personalized healthcare solutions. This aligns with my vision of transitioning from reactive sickcare to proactive healthcare, where digital twins play a crucial role in anticipating and managing health outcomes. Kudos to Jonathan Baptista and team #digitaltwins #pharma #drugdiscovery #omics #multiomics Digital Twin Consortium Sven Eyckerman VIB

🔍 Big News in AI-Powered Drug Discovery: Exscientia Merges with Recursion! 🤖💊 In a strategic move that caps off a challenging year for Exscientia, the AI-driven drug discovery company is merging into Recursion, creating a powerhouse in the biotech space! 🌟 Key Highlights: -Combined Strengths: Exscientia brings precision chemistry design and automated synthesis, while Recursion offers scaled biology exploration and translational capabilities. 🧬🤝 -Financial Powerhouse: The new entity will have $850M in cash, $200M in expected milestones over 24 months, and a potential $20B in future royalties. 💰 -Robust Pipeline: With 10 clinical readouts expected over the next 18 months, this merger sets the stage for groundbreaking developments in oncology, rare diseases, and infectious diseases. 🦠🎯 -Synergies & Growth: The companies project $100M in operational synergies, leveraging their combined AI and drug discovery platforms. 📈 This merger signifies a bold step forward in AI-driven biotech, with the potential to revolutionise the development of life-saving medicines. Exciting times ahead! 🚀 #Biotech #AIDrugDiscovery #PharmaInnovation #MergersAndAcquisitions #Oncology #PrecisionMedicine #AI #DrugDevelopment #HealthcareTransformation

"Drug development teams have found significant data and modeling challenges in regard to tackling the complexities associated with #PDIinhibitors given the challenges with creating meaningful models, and accumulating and deciphering the data," said Panna Sharma, CEO and President of Lantern Pharma. "Our #AI platform, RADR®, can increase the confidence, insights, and comfort levels in developing data-driven development paths by modeling highly complex scenarios at a scale that only has become possible recently. It’s an ideal approach for Oregon Therapeutics, which has executed a series of highly targeted in vivo and in vitro experiments and is poised to make incredibly important and patient-centric decisions about the clinical future of the molecule. That's where RADR® can play a highly essential and market defining role." https://lnkd.in/g8XPQSsa #biotech #businessdevelopment #artificialintelligence

VRG Therapeutics is thrilled to announce that our project, "Development of a high-efficiency drug discovery platform combining advanced laboratory techniques, computational structure modeling, and Big Data analysis," with a total budget of EUR 1 million has been selected as a winner of the "Fast Track" grant by NRDIO - National Research Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH). AI is revolutionizing preclinical drug development, from identifying new targets to designing novel drugs. This opportunity will allow us to enhance our miniprotein drug discovery platform (AI-MPRO) and stay ahead of the curve.   We are excited to take this next step in transforming the drug discovery landscape and are grateful for the support that will help us drive innovation and the future of healthcare. #Innovation #DrugDiscovery #AI #Miniproteins #BigData #Pharma #Research #NKFIH #VRGTherapeutics

“Knowledge of what causes human disease has exploded in the ‘omics’ era, but the ability to discover and develop new molecules to treat those diseases hasn't kept pace,” said Terray Therapeutics CEO and co-founder Jacob Berlin, PhD. “Trained on rapidly iterating, precise data generated at unprecedented scale in our labs, Terray’s AI will dramatically improve the success rate of small molecule development and bring relief to patients.” Terray Therapeutics has just secured an additional $120M in #SeriesB funding (bringing its total equity financing since inception to over $200M) to propel its small molecule programs forward. In an industry where precision and speed in drug development are paramount, Terray’s AI-powered platform offers a new approach to addressing the challenges of traditional discovery methods. This milestone comes with the backing of key investors like NVIDIA and Bristol Myers Squibb, who clearly see the transformative potential in this partnership. Together, they aim to tackle the bottlenecks in traditional drug discovery, combining Terray’s proprietary AI technology with the expertise of industry heavyweights. Other milestones include: ✅ Rapid progress on internal immunology programs, driven by AI-powered chemistry optimization. ✅ Strategic partnerships with Calico Life Sciences and Bristol Myers Squibb to address complex disease targets. ✅ Development and publication of the industry-leading COATI chemistry foundation model and the application of latent diffusion machine learning for small molecule design—a first in the field. ✅ Strenghtened leadership at Terray with the addition of experienced figures such as Feroze U. (Fez Ujjainwalla) as Chief Business Officer and Anna Goranson as Chief People Officer. Additionally, biotech veterans like John Maraganore, Bassil Dahiyat, and Sudha Parasuraman have taken on strategic roles within the company, further solidifying its leadership position in the industry. Bedford Ridge Capital nVentures Maverick Capital Goldcrest Capital Madrona Venture Labs Two Sigma XTX Ventures Digitalis Ventures Sid Shenai Kimberly Powell #Biotech #AIinHealthcare #DrugDevelopment #TerrayTherapeutics #SmallMolecule #PrecisionMedicine #BiopharmaInnovation #Biopharma #Innovation

A new company called Xaira Therapeutics just launched with over $1B+ billion in funding for using AI in drug discovery R&D. To give you some context, the last time we saw this level of fundraising was for Roivant Sciences, which focuses on creating companies around abandoned drugs, and Altos Labs, with $3B for cellular rejuvenation programming. But this is the 1st for an AI drug discovery R&D company. Interestingly, a significant portion of the company's technology originates from the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, which is renowned for its work in protein science. This institute is led by Prof. David Baker, the co-founder of this and also the Charm Therapeutics. Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/eCZfV4CW #drugdiscovery #artificialintelligence

I will be present at Drug Discovery & Preclinical Summit. Let’s talk and start the antibody discovery journey! #SanyouSuperTribillonAntibodyLibrary #theBiggestSizeAntibodyLibraryInTheWorld

🚀 Exciting Update! Our startup MyRNAAP (MyRNA) is in the development phase, crafting innovative bioinformatics and AI solutions for RNA-based therapies. Currently, we're focusing on harnessing plant-origin microRNAs to tackle various diseases. 🔍 We need your valuable input! Please take a moment to complete and share our survey within your network. Your feedback, especially from experts in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, will shape our future endeavors. Survey Link: https://lnkd.in/dXdyA9tr Thank you for your support! For any questions or suggestions, feel free to reach out directly. #Bioinformatics #AI #RNAtherapies #MarketResearch #HealthcareInnovation #Pharma #Biotech #StartupJourney #innovation #pharma #RNA #MyRNAAP (MyRNA) #Startup #tech #PMR

Wow, this is a big one - $1B to leverage GenAI for drug molecule design. Two links to Illumina: - Funding lead is Bob Nelson, who seed-funded Illumina, and - "teams and technologies from the genetic sequencing giant Illumina" "Drug R&D is an endeavor rife with failure — commonly cited figures estimate that only about 10% of drugs that make it to human testing are ever approved, and a far greater share fail before ever being tested in a person." "Xaira and several other new biotechs believe they can change that with new generative AI methods that can design complex molecules from scratch, find new targets, and cut months or even years from the process." Great example of the potential for GenAI to disrupt the entire drug development process. At Ryght we're applying GenAI to another major bottleneck - getting drugs through clinical trials (you can try the preview version at ryght.ai).