Singapore and TechBio
Singapore and TechBio
Revolutionizing Drug Development with AI/ML in Xīn jiā pō
“Ideas come and go, stories stay.”
By Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
News 🌡️
One of the top VCs in Europe, Christina Takke from V-Bio Ventures talks at Flot.bio
Tx-LLM: A Large Language Model for Therapeutics
Iambic and NVIDIA: Using AI to chart a faster course for drug discovery
Insilico Moves HQ to Cambridge, MA, Completes IPF Trial Enrollment
EvolutionaryScale Debuts With ESM3 Generative AI Model for Protein Design (NVIDIA H100-enabled model)
EvolutionaryScale, backed by Amazon and Nvidia, raises $142M for protein-generating AI
Enveda raises $55M to combine ancient remedies with AI for drug discovery
Lilly collaborates with OpenAI to discover novel medicines to treat drug-resistant bacteria
Singapore and TechBio
⚙ Bioinformatics Institute and A*STAR
The Bioinformatics Institute (BII) was set up by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in July 2001 and it was relaunched with a strong scientific program in 2007. Located in the Biopolis in Singapore, BII aims to understand the biomolecular mechanisms that underlie biomedical phenomena by developing sophisticated computational methods to support this discovery process from a secure and sustainable data hub for cross-disciplinary AI/ML analysis and data integration.
At BII, they analyze a wide spectrum of biological and clinical data, including omics data (biomolecular sequences, expression profiles, epigenetics data), 3D structures of macro molecules and biological tissue and macroscopic images from local and international academic, hospital and industry collaborators, public resources and from their own experiments. Their applied research diversifies into infectious diseases, computational toxicology, natural product research, precision medicine, cancer research and drug discovery.
On October 24, 2023, two of their Principal Investigators, Sebastian Maurer-Stroh and Igor Berezovsky, earned recognition as part of the world's top 2% of scientists. This prestigious acknowledgment stands as a testament to their extraordinary contributions and expertise within their respective fields (protein sequence analysis and physics and evolution of biological macromolecules).
On November 22, 2023, XtalPi, powered by AI and robotics, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Experimental Drug Development Centre (EDDC), Singapore's national drug discovery and development platform hosted by A*STAR, for the expansion of their collaboration to encompass potential projects that will focus on the application of automated synthesis solutions and large language models in pharmaceutical research (Singapore's Experimental Drug Development Centre inks new collaboration with Chinese startup XtalPi).
🏏 On February 27, 2024, a team of scientists from A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) and BII announced that they developed a new AI software tool called "BANKSY" that automatically recognizes the cell types present in a tissue, such as muscle cells, nerve cells and fat cells (BANKSY unifies cell typing and tissue domain segmentation for scalable spatial omics data analysis). BANKSY stands for Building Aggregates with a Neighborhood Kernel and Spatial Yardstick and is an algorithm that unifies these two spatial clustering problems by embedding cells in a product space of their own and the local neighborhood transcriptome, representing cell state and microenvironment, respectively. BANKSY’s spatial feature augmentation strategy improved performance on both tasks when tested on diverse RNA (imaging, sequencing) and protein (imaging) datasets.
⚙ TechBio news from Singapore
On December 26, 2023, a group of researchers from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has successfully utilized AI and DL techniques to model atomic-level RNA 3D structures from primary RNA sequences with DRfold (Singapore develops AI-based tool for accurate 3D structure prediction of RNA to enhance drug designing), that improves the accuracy of RNA models by more than 70 percent compared to traditional approaches. Moving forward, the team envisions extending its AI strategy to encompass protein-RNA interactions and to further improve DRfold’s accuracy in single-chain RNA structure prediction. For more 👉
🏓 On February 19, 2024, Singapore deputy prime minister and finance minister Lawrence Wongin said in his Budget 2024 statement that Singapore will invest S$1bn in AI over five years. The funding will go towards compute, talent, and industry development to support Singapore’s national AI strategy.
🏓 On Monday 29 April 2024, in the article Artificial intelligence and life sciences: a perspective from Singapore it was highlighted how integration and adoption of AI and digital technology have been making significant strides in the healthcare landscape. In particular, Synapxe, Singapore's national health tech agency, has engaged in several AI-driven diagnostics and treatment initiatives, such as:
AimSG, a collaboration between Synapxe, SingHealth, NTT Data and its partners, is a platform that integrates AI imaging solutions into clinical workflows, thereby enhancing diagnostic precision and efficiency (and has been piloted at two hospitals in Singapore).
Assisted Chronic Disease Explanation using AI ('ACE-AI') is a digital assistant tool made for general practitioners, which leverages neural networks and explainable AI to identify risk factors and assess chronic disease management. And
Synapxe, in collaboration with Microsoft, is pioneering Secure GPT for Healthcare Professionals ('Secure GPT') that seeks to automate routine healthcare tasks.
🏓 On May 17, 2024, as Asia establishes itself as the global hub for clinical trials, Singapore announced that is bolstering its position as the preferred location for these trials to take place and plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next five years to further boost Singapore’s AI clinical potential (Singapore's AI potential and prospects to emerge as a premier clinical trials hub).
⚙ KYAN Technologies Pte Ltd
KYAN Technologies (2016, Singapore) has a novel technology platform (the ex vivo analytics platform Optim.AI™) that combines small data AI and biological experiments in order to support clinicians to truly personalize treatment for their cancer patients and also work with pharmaceutical companies to efficiently discover drug-dose combinations.
The Optim.AI™ platform is disease-agnostic and can be applied across a spectrum of biological models and from preclinical drug development through clinical trials, and for clinical decision support. In 2023, KYAN Technologies obtained MOH approval (the database data are accurate and in line with Ministry of Health data) in Singapore to offer Optim.AI™ for cancer patients. Kyan is backed by SEEDS Capital and has raised a total funding of $5M over 1 round.
NalaGenetics Pte Ltd
NalaGenetics (2016, Singapore) is a DNA-based precision healthcare company that offers next-generation genomic interpretation from germline sequencing, focusing on diverse populations. The company combines monogenic risk, polygenic risk and clinical/epigenetic risk, and suggests personalized prevention strategies for cancer, cardiometabolic disorders, psychiatry and neurodegenerative conditions. They offer:
NutriReady™ is a personalized Nutrition DNA Test to personalize the way you nourish your body through the power of your unique DNA 🧬.
RxReady™ is a personalized Medications DNA Test to reduce the risk of negative side effects and low efficacy from taking the wrong medications.
LifeReady™ is a Lifestyle DNA Test to unlock your genetic potential: from fitness, allergy and skin health to longevity.
MammoReady™ is a Breast Cancer Risk Prediction DNA Test to help you understand your risks of developing breast cancer.
Nalagenetics has raised a total of $13.6M in funding over 5 rounds.
For more, Pharmacogenomics in Asia-Pacific: Nalagenetics CEO Levana Sani Offers Insights and Strategies (April 2024).
⚙ Qritive Pte Ltd
Qritive (2017) designs and deploys AI-powered solutions that enable histopathologic diagnosis of cancer at scale, resulting in improved patient outcome and better health equity. They offer an AI-driven ecosystem of products and services like:
Pantheon is a clinically approved, vendor-agnostic ecosystem equipped with a holistic range of features to support pathologists, digitizing the pathology workflow from start to finish (case management, AI analysis of whole-slide images, report generation, QA, telepathology and remote diagnosis if possible), offering AI modules trained to identify and grade cancer.
QAi Prostate Dx and QAi Prostate Grade are advanced solutions tailored for precise prostate cancer screening and grading. These solutions optimize lab workflows (enhancing efficiency by enabling screening, triage and prioritization of cases) and offer vital support to pathologists.
QAi Colon Dx is a specialized tool distinguishing between benign and malignant colon tissue, utilizing a sophisticated deep neural network.
Lymph Node Dx is an advanced AI Module designed to detect metastasis in lymph nodes, a condition present in as low as 1.1% of patients with lymphadenopathy.
QAi IHC Ki67 Quant is an AI Module designed for the quantitative assessment of Immunohistochemistry (IHC) assays with Ki67 staining.
QAi Breast Her2 Quant supports pathologists in precisely categorizing patients into HER2-negative, 1+, 2+, and 3+ groups on HER2 stained IHC slides. And
Pantheon Academy provides storage repository for the digitized pathology whole slide images and collaboration for the pathologists for research and academic use.
🥅 On February 04, 2024, Qritive announced a partnership with esteemed diagnostic centers and hospitals in India: Metropolis Healthcare, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and CŌRE Diagnostics. These institutions have embraced the Pantheon image management system (IMS) and Qritive's AI products, marking them as trailblazers in adoption of AI in pathology workflows.
Qritive (in partnership with Intel and Lenovo) raised a total funding of $7.5M over 2 rounds.
⚙ Gero Pte Ltd
Gero (2015), working in the field of longevity, is a pre-clinical stage company aiming to create therapeutics through the use of its GERO.AI platform, that utilizes whole-exome sequencing data for in-human AI Drug Discovery.
Gero also has a platform called GeroSense, which creates digital biomarkers to measure health changes via smartphone with a precision blood test. GeroSense is a health app on our smartphone that provides digital biomarkers of health and resilience (the recovery rate after stress such as having a cold, exhausting physical activity etc). But instead of simply counting the total number of steps taken each day, GeroSense predicts biological age acceleration in years of life gained or lost, due to healthy or unhealthy lifestyle and nutrition choices.
In January 2023, Gero announced that it had entered a research collaboration with Pfizer to discover potential targets for fibrotic diseases, using large-scale human-based data.
On October 18, 2023, Gero closed $6M in a Series A extension round (for a total of $13.5M). The round was led by Melnichek Investments (a Cyprus-based VC firm that seeks to improve the quality of human lives by funding and supporting promising, potentially high-impact, ML startups) with the participation of VitaDAO and Leonid Lozner.
⚙ Holmusk
Holmusk (2015) is a digital health platform that uses big data to tackle chronic diseases (mental health, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease) and influence positive health outcomes. The platform monitors the user's data and the prediction engine recommends lifestyle changes before the condition worsens.
On October 02, 2023, Veradigm Inc (NASDAQ: MDRX), a leading provider of healthcare data and technology solutions, and Holmusk jointly announced the next stage in their strategic collaboration, where cohorts of millions of behavioral health patients and related de-identified clinical data from Veradigm will be added to Holmusk’s NeuroBlu Database (a powerful data analytics software), a leading source for real-world data that shows how behavioral health care is delivered. Veradigm is also making an additional financial investment in Holmusk, building on a collaboration launched early this year, when Veradigm became the lead investor in Holmusk’s Series B financing round.
Holmusk has raised a total of $109M over 7 rounds.
⚙ Hummingbird Biosciences Pte Ltd
Hummingbird Biosciences (2015, Singapore) is a clinical-stage biotechnology company with proprietary technologies and platforms, developing a broad pipeline of novel, precision therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. Hummingbird Bioscience’s Rational Antibody Discovery platform leverages data-rich, systems biology approaches to identify critical functional regions of a target protein, drive production of antibodies against these epitopes, and then isolate the antibodies that bind to them, thereby optimizing the therapeutic potential of a target. The platform consists of:
mAbHits that uses an immunoengineering system to manipulate an immune response to control the production of antibodies against defined optimal yet elusive epitopes on a disease associated protein. mAbHits increases the proportion of usable therapeutic antibodies.
mAbPredict that uses AI-powered computational biology to integrate and analyze data from multidisciplinary sources to produce validated insights into the biology of the disease and provide predictions regarding which epitopes on a disease associated protein will yield antibodies with optimal efficacy and safety profiles.
In their pipeline, they have two Phase 1 studies:
HMBD-001 targeting HER3, a potent driver of tumor growth and resistance against cancer drugs. HMBD-001 is currently in clinical trials in the UK (NCT05057013), and in Australia evaluating patients with squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NCT05910827) and patients with genetic aberrations in HER3 signaling (NCT05919537).
HMBD-002 targeting VISTA (V-domain immunoglobulin suppressor of T cell activation). HMBD-002 is currently in clinical trials: NCT05082610 for Multiple Solid Tumors.
Hummingbird Biosciences has raised a total funding of $150M over 6 rounds from 24 investors.
⭐ Hello Tomorrow Asia Pacific (Think Tank, Singapore) (link) is part of a global non-profit on a mission to unlock the potential of deep technologies to help solve some of the world's toughest challenges by:
identifying, validating and supporting the most promising innovations in their earliest stages,
introducing and building a global actionable network for deep-tech entrepreneurs,
facilitating earnest conversation and collaboration among contributors aiming to make breakthrough innovation an everyday reality,
encouraging problem-driven innovation and stimulating public interest in and discussion of deep-tech developments, and their possibilities and impact.
⚙ Patsnap Pte Ltd
Patsnap (originated in Singapore in 2007 and now a global company with offices throughout Asia, Europe and America) is the leader in AI-powered innovation intelligence with a user-friendly platform that revolutionizes how IP (Patent Analytics) and R&D (Eureka, Discovery) teams collaborate across the entire innovation lifecycle—from validating ideas to analyzing the competitive landscape and beyond. More than 12,000 global companies across diverse industries—including life sciences, manufacturing, engineering, automotive, consumer goods, law firms, technology and more—trust Patsnap to innovate faster with AI.
Specifically to Life Sciences they offer:
Patsnap for Life Sciences a 360º hub for disease intelligence:
Patsnap is a global leader in innovation intelligence with a team of 1,200+ Patsnappers spanning three continents and 12,000+ customers in 50+ countries, revolutionizing the innovation process from concept to commercialization.
Backed by Sequoia, SoftBank and Vertex Ventures, Patsnap has raised a total of $300M of funding over 6 rounds.
⚙ Nanyang Biologics Pte Ltd
Nanyang Biologics (2019) is a transformative biotech company harnessing the power of natural compounds (Medicinal Plants from South East Asia known for chronic diseases treatment and prevention) and pioneering an AI Drug Discovery Pipeline.
Their platform begins with their proprietary ML model, leveraging protein language models from: extensive amino acid sequence libraries and the ChEMBL library, NTU's natural product library and various commercial compounds. This strategy skips the initial need for 3D structural data, accelerating the shortlisting of potential small molecules, that afterwards undergo a comprehensive analysis using Alphafold2 and Autodock Vina for molecular docking, and their proprietary Drug-Target Interaction Graph Neural Network (DTIGN), which refines biological activity predictions based on molecule-protein interaction data. This process swiftly yields thousands of hits, which are meticulously assessed for open source ADME-Tox, analyzed through molecular dynamics simulations and subjected to rigorous preclinical validation.
In their pipeline you can find:
A promising lead molecule, NB1001, derived from a tropical medicinal plant from Singapore and Malaysia. NB1001, and its derivative NB1002, exhibit enhanced potent anti-cancer activity, effectively instigating synthetic lethality through Transcription-Replication Conflicts in Homologous Recombination Deficiency (HRD) cancers (E.g Triple Negative BRCA (-/-) Breast Cancer).
Synthetic lethality (SL) provides a conceptual framework for tackling targets that are not classically "druggable," including loss-of-function mutations in tumor suppressor genes required for carcinogenesis (Synthetic Lethality in Cancer Therapeutics: The Next Generation).
NYH201 (isolated from another tropical medicinal plant that is commonly consumed by the public in the Southeast Asia Region) induces cyclic AMP production and PKA activation by activating GLP-1 Receptor. Low level of cyclic AMP and PKA activity highly correlate with aging-related and metabolic diseases including but not limited to atherosclerosis, aging, fatty liver, diabetes and obesity. And
Six high-impact nutraceutical products (GMP Grade) have been developed using traditional medicinal plants in the South East Asia (Nanyang Biologics-NTU Joint Laboratory sponsors the research at NTU for Drug Discovery and Therapeutics from tropical medicinal plants), each designed to tackle specific health concerns and boost overall wellness based on preclinical experiments:
🔵 CareViva acts as a pre/probiotic by changing gut microbiome composition to improve gut environment.
🔵 CardiaViva targeting foam cell formation for reduction of total cholesterol, free cholesterol and cholesteryl ester.
🔵 LivaViva for effective lipid management of liver cells.
🔵 AdipoCare for lowering adipogenesis.
⚙ BluMaiden Biosciences Pte Ltd
BluMaiden Biosciences (2020) is a biotechnology company probing the vastness of chemical space hidden within the human microbiome, by leveraging AI-powered computational genetics and chemistry engines (MAIDEN™ Platform). The company is currently involved in several clinical trials and collaborations with clinical institutions, biotechnology companies and pharmas to address challenges and provide enhanced support in clinical research and drug discovery.
They leverage clinical cohort data to identify disease-targeting small molecules generated by the human microbiome, building upon a comprehensive and ever-expanding database, encompassing diverse clinical metadata, meta genomes and biomarkers with worldwide coverage, linked to virtual chemical space. This robust database solidifies the data-centric foundation of their research powered by a globally deployable analytics platform, utilizing cloud computing to generate insights from big data.
The MAIDEN™ Platform is used for:
Microbial functional genome mining and computational chemistry that reveals actionable chemical spaces related to disease status and pathophysiology.
Assessing in silico candidate small molecules and molecular targets.
Validating against human targets virtual small molecule leads coupled to clinical data.
In 2023, BluMaiden Biosciences announced a significant collaboration with A*STAR's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS) to investigate the crucial area of the microbiome's impact on the bone and metabolic health of Asian women.
On April 13, 2023, BluMaiden announced also a strategic collaboration with Perspectum, a global medical technology company, to identify biomarkers and small molecule therapeutics from within the human microbiome, combining BluMaiden Bioscience’s platform-based AI technologies and Perspectum’s medical imaging solutions.
On March 15, 2023, BluMaiden Biosciences announced that the well-known IT Industry leader, Michael Gorriz, Ph.D. has joined the Company as investor and member of the board.
BluMaiden Biosciences has raised $2.34M, and now is seeking to raise up to $3.5M is seed funding.
⚙ GIC
GIC is a global long-term investor established in 1981 to manage Singapore’s foreign reserves. GIC is one of the three investment entities in Singapore and manages Singapore's reserves, alongside the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Temasek, investing in technology, infrastructure and sustainability. So far, they have invested in more than 40 countries worldwide and some examples of life science companies are:
In 2021, GIC invested $57M in Engine Biosciences Pte Ltd that is a venture-backed San Francisco- and Asia-based technology company pioneering network biomedicine. Based in Singapore, Engine integrates ML and high-throughput biology to identify key genetic interactions within complex disease networks, pinpointing targets and therapeutics for biomarker-defined patient populations. In particular, Engine’s proprietary platforms NetMAPPR (ML-enabled network biology) and CombiGEM (combinatorial genetics experimentation), have been used so far for multiple internal programs, like for example ENB-812 (IND-enabling) which Engine has overseen since 2019 after discovering PKMYT1, a synthetic lethal target utilizing novel biomarkers.
On October 31, 2023, Engine announced the completion of a $27M Series A extension (for a total raised since inception $86M) and the financing was led by Polaris Partners. Additional participating investors included existing investors ClavystBio (a life sciences venture investor set up by Temasek), Invus and Singapore-based global investor 🧚 EDBI, as well as new investors
🧚♀️ Coronet Ventures (a Singapore-based investment entity of Cedars Sinai Intellectual Property Company) and
🧚♂️ SEEDS Capital the investment arm of Enterprise Singapore.
⚙ Serendipity Capital
Serendipity Capital founded in late 2019 in Singapore is a permanent capital vehicle focused on disruptive thematics including AI & ML, climate & sustainability, quantum technologies and security. With a long-term investment approach and managed by entrepreneurs, investors and industry leaders, Serendipity has invested so far in the following quantum companies relevant to life science:
🔗 QuantrolOx Ltd is an Anglo-Finnish company with a software platform that automates control of quantum computers by leveraging AI and ML. QuantrolOx’s software is expected to increase the performance of quantum computers while reducing the need for manual calibration of the machine by scientists and technicians. Their product Quantum Edge automates the tuning and optimization of superconducting quantum computers. It reduces the time for fundamental experiments such as resonator and qubit spectroscopy to mere seconds, and complex operations like randomized benchmarking become a breeze. It offers a fast and convenient way of viewing key metrics mapped to qubits on the QPU. It tracks the progress of automation and provides workflow status updates. And gives insight and analysis of measurements allowing ease of use and the ability to deep dive into the results.
🏸 On January 1, 2024, QuantrolOx has released Quantum Edge Asparagus, a software platform that provides automated qubit control for automating the tuning and calibration of quantum computers.
🏸 As of March 2024, the Zurich Instruments’ Quantum Computing Control System (QCCS) is integrated into QuantrolOx’s Quantum EDGE, the leading automation tool for bringing up, characterizing, tuning, and controlling different qubit systems.
🔗 Quantinuum Ltd is the leading independent full-stack quantum computing company that unites best-in-class software and high-fidelity hardware to accelerate quantum computing. With its technology and a team of world-class scientists and engineers, it offers the world’s leading corporations a broad suite of quantum solutions spanning cybersecurity, chemistry, ML and natural language processing. InQuanto v3.0, the latest version of their quantum platform for Computational Chemistry for complex molecular and materials simulations, can be used for example for Quantum Computational Quantification of Protein-Ligand Interactions. Quantinuum has raised a total of $625M and was valued at $5bn in 2024.
Finally, other TechBio companies from Singapore are 🔍:
Carecam (2022) is redefining therapeutics by creating digital biomarkers from human body motion to enable early interventions and deliver personalized care for neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases.
Kinexcs Pte Ltd (2015) is an AI-driven digital therapy platform & wearables company enabling and empowering people for mobility and a better quality of life. It utilizes advanced IoT wearable tech and AI algorithms to reduce the burden of healthcare providers and patients with musculoskeletal conditions, and is backed by SEEDS Capital 🎠🎡 in Singapore. Other companies backed by SEEDS are:
Riverr Pte Ltd (2019) connects the world’s health data. The platform solves fragmentation that have held back AI and patient-level data collaboration in the past, giving healthcare organizations the ability to make accurate, explainable and actionable predictions of individual-level health risks.
HistoIndex Pte Ltd (2010) is a MedTech company that specializes in its proprietary integrated stain-free AI digital pathology platform, as well as in the provision of related services, to assist pathologists in diagnosing various diseases.
MiyaHealth Pte Ltd (2019), a global AI SaaS firm, improves healthcare efficiency through its digital infrastructure. Its product suite: MiyaPayor, MiyaPatient and MiyaProvider, fuses healthtech, insurtech and fintech capabilities to drive efficiency, resulting in better healthcare experiences and outcomes.
Kronikare Pte Ltd is revolutionizing chronic wound care with early detection and efficiency. The AI-powered KroniKare Wound Scanner sets a new standard in healthcare technology.
Automera Pte Ltd (2022) is pioneering a new frontier in autophagy-driven degradation through cutting-edge computational chemistry, AI and quantum molecular dynamics, designing chimeric small molecules with dual-binding capabilities that target both autophagy and the specific disease target, unleashing a powerful approach to combat diseases with unprecedented precision and efficiency. Automera is backed by EDBI.
Another company backed by EDBI is Biofourmis Pte Ltd (2015), offering a connected technology platform that partners with health systems and pharmaceutical companies to revolutionize the delivery of care and drug development across the care continuum. BioFourmis’s platform offers remote data collection, digital endpoints from Biofourmis' library of biomarkers, digital tools support, trial decentralization, safety monitoring, customized care, and easier and equitable patient recruitment options.