Insilico’s AI Pipeline for Drug Discovery To Grow with New Partnership

On November 10th, Insilico Medicine, a leader in AI technology and reinforcement learning for target discovery, entered into a multi-target drug discovery agreement with Janssen Pharmaceutica N.V. (Janssen), a deal that was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC.

Under the terms of the agreement, Insilico Medicine will design small-molecule hits with preferred sets of parameters for several targets proposed by Janssen. The company will demonstrate the discovery process and detailed platform capabilities and is slated to receive upfront and milestone payments.

We are very happy to collaborate with Janssen, one of the leading and most innovative companies in the field of drug discovery. Since 2019 Insilico Medicine has been a resident of Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS, which facilitated closer communication with the scientists at Janssen and other companies in the ecosystem, and we see this collaboration as a “graduation” from JLABS,” said Alex Zhavoronkov, Ph.D., Founder, and CEO of Insilico Medicine.

AI Platform

With a mission to accelerate drug discovery and development, Insilico Medicine has been breaking new ground with its next-generation AI technologies. The company develops software that utilizes generative adversarial networks, reinforcement learning, and other advanced machine learning techniques to generate novel molecular structures, identify disease targets, and predict clinical trial outcomes.

Their revolutionary drug discovery platform utilizes millions of data samples and multiple data types to discover signatures of diseases and identify promising targets for billions of existing or newly synthesized molecules. With multiple research publications and patents in the area, including proof-of-concept studies with experimental validation, Insilco Medicine has emerged as the pioneer in the field of generative chemistry and generative biology.

The company integrates two business models, providing AI-powered drug discovery services and software through its Pharma.AI platform and developing its own pipeline of preclinical programs. The preclinical program is the result of pursuing novel drug targets and novel molecules discovered through its platforms.

Partnerships

Since its inception in 2014, Insilico Medicine has raised over $52 million and received multiple industry awards. Insilico Medicine has also published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and has applied for over 25 patents. In 2020 it launched the Chemistry42 generative chemistry operating system and made first on-site deployments with the big pharmaceutical companies and drug discovery partnerships.

Insilico was, in fact, the first to use Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to generate novel molecules in 2016 and since then has spent two years developing ways to combine the techniques for drug development. In 2019, Insilico had a $200 million deal with Jiangsu Chia Tai Fenghai Pharmaceutical (CTFH) to launch a dual-program drug discovery. Last month, it announced it would begin research to identify novel therapeutics against aging through its proprietary Pharma.AI, Pandomics Discovery, and Chemistry42 platforms with Japan-based Taisho Pharmaceutical Co.

By Sangeeta Chakraborty, Ph.D.

Editor: Rajaneesh K. Gopinath, Ph.D.

Related Article: Insilico Medicine, Taisho Partnership Sets Precedent in Drug Discovery and Development

References

1. https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/insilico-announces-a-multi-target-ai-powered-drug-discovery-collaboration-with-janssen-869211536.html

Author

Sangeeta Chakraborty