TechBio Latest News & Updates 🌀
TechBio Latest News & Updates 🌀
MetaphysicalCells: A newsletter about Science, Technology and AI Drug Discovery
“As I studied the mass more closely, I began to feel that it was not the product of random accumulation but that it actually had a coherent form all of its own; and while the individual items were dirty and deteriorating, taken together they were like a strange piece of art.”
By Yōko Ogawa, 小川 洋子 (From: "Revenge")
Latest News 🍇
🟣 Expanding APAC presence, Insilico Medicine seals strategic collaboration on AI-driven mash therapy development with Korean Biotech Therasid Bioscience
🟣 SandboxAQ Taps Nvidia to Boost its Quantitative AI for Drug Discovery, Other Industries
🟪 A Review of Large Language Models and Autonomous Agents in Chemistry
🟪 OpenAI and Los Alamos National Laboratory announce bioscience research partnership
🟣 A data science roadmap for open science organizations engaged in early-stage drug discovery
🟣 High Content Screening: Redefining What Is Possible with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
🟪 SynaptixBio Ltd and Evotec SE expand collaboration
🟪 Evotec and Pfizer Collaborate to Advance Drug Discovery in France
🟣 Evotec (NASDAQ:EVO) Stock Rating Lowered by Morgan Stanley
🟣 Innovent Biologics partners with WeComput to enhance AI-driven drug discovery
Mercia Asset Management 💶
Mercia Asset Management (LON: MERC) is fuelling UK business ambitions and forging long-term partnerships, providing venture capital, private equity and debt investment ranging from £100k to £10M to accelerate growth and impact, with Mercia Ventures, Mercia PE and Mercia Debt.
Mercia has invested in Oxford Genetics Ltd, a UK based DNA engineering company, with trading name OXGENE. OXGENE, a WuXi Advanced Therapies (WuXi ATU) company based in Oxford, UK, provides cell and gene therapy pioneers around the world with the technologies, automation platforms and service solutions they need to come first in the race to deliver ground-breaking therapeutics. In particular, OXGENE, helps pioneering companies accelerate the discovery and biomanufacture of their CAR-T / Cell Therapies and Gene Therapies. Moreover, they have integrated GMP manufacturing and testing from WuXi Advanced Therapies.
At Mercia their Life Science and Bioscience portfolio is considered big and for example they invest into:
Applied Monitoring Ltd (2018, UK) is a completely non-invasive transdermal sensor company for investigating blood science in the following sectors: Alcohol Misuse, Drug & Substance Misuse, Healthcare & Sports and Pharmaceuticals.
Tagomics (2020, UK) is harnessing the power of multiomics to accelerate disease understanding and diagnosis. Tagomics has developed a technology and supporting processes for epigenetic-based cancer tests. Current methods to assess the epigenome are complex and expensive and can prohibit multi-sequencing approaches, in contrast the Tagomics approach is differentiated with early validation showing that it is more accurate, cheaper and faster than incumbent technologies.
On February 21, 2024, Tagomics raised £6.7M for disease diagnostics.
SleepCogni (2015, UK) has developed an in-home monitoring and biofeedback system to enable sleep clinicians to diagnose and monitor insomnia and to identify co-existing health and sleep disorders. SleepCogni’s patented bedside and wearable device system helps sleep professionals better understand insomniacs and offers a range of proven interventions, such as CBT-I (Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia). They offer a comprehensive digital and technological solution integrating information on physiology, behavior and the sleeping environment. They are working with some of the worlds' leading technologists, sleep clinicians and universities.
SERG Technologies (2018, UK) is a digital health and care solutions provider for people living with neurodegenerative movement disorders. SERG's PD.Ignite is their holistic Parkinson's care analytics platform to monitor and manage Parkinson's Disease across all stakeholders. The SERG PD.Ignite platform is powered by AI and patented sensor technologies. They are running a number of trials using PD.Ignite, and some are backed by Innovate UK and the National Institute of Health and Care Research.
Black Bird VC 🎩
Black Bird VC is based in Australia and New Zealand and invests in every type of technology from software to space 🌌. They back generational ambition with generational belief by raising funds, investing in the best startup companies all the way through their journey from idea to beyond IPO. Their portfolio is worth over $7B and includes some of the most successful Aussie and Kiwi startups including Canva, Zoox, SafetyCulture, Culture Amp and Halter. In the TechBio sector they invest into:
Inventia Life Science (2023, Australia) develops solutions to create advanced cell models and help forward-thinking pioneers in the fields of drug discovery and biomedical research to create human tissue for research and therapy. Their machine (RASTRUM™ Instrument) creates advanced cell models which most closely and predictably imitate real human tissue structure and behavior across a range of disease states. This physiological complexity offers an environment in which world-class research and discovery can occur, right in your own lab. In particular, RASTRUM™ is drop-on-demand technology that deposits nanoliter droplets of cells and matrix components to build 3D cell models in a way that's rapid, precise and gentle on cells.
On December 04, 2023, Inventia Life Science launched the Inventia Third Dimension Grant. This grant will allow researchers studying fundamental biology or drug development to model and test hypotheses using 3D cell cultures. These advanced models enable scientists to test questions they’d be unable to answer using 2D cell cultures or animal models (Inventia Life Science Announces Third Dimension Grant for 3D Cell Culture Research).
Sahha AI (2021, Australia) offers all the tools you need to collect and analyze health and wearable data so you can build next generation health & fitness apps. You can pull data from wearables and smartphones through integrations with Apple Health, Google Health Connect, including: Android & Google devices, Oura Ring, Samsung, Garmin, Whoop, Peloton, Polar and more.
Vexev (2018, Australia) is building the next generation of non-invasive medical imaging and intelligent patient monitoring. They offer solutions for: For Vascular Labs, For Dialysis Providers and For Healthcare Professionals.
Elnora.AI 🦠😷
Elnora AI (2023, Estonia) is an antiviral drug discovery company focusing on host cells rather than directly targeting viruses and addressing the challenges posed by viral mutations and the limited size of viral genomes. This strategy, previously almost impossible due to the expansive nature of human genomic data and concerns over potential side effects, is now within our grasp, thanks to the capabilities of AI.
By integrating their AI-driven platform into antiviral drug discovery, they collect detailed experimental data, including failed experiments, from a global community of researchers, in order to tackle the 90% failure rate in drug discovery. As a first product, they are developing a protocol optimizer to create a reproducible, unbiased dataset, promoting Open and FAIR science, and aiming to eliminate animal use in research. This tool allows to build an ML-readable dataset as a source of truly novel and successful drug targets. As a SaaS product, it enhances internal drug discovery projects and offers the same opportunities to all biotech and pharma companies as their clients.
Co-founded by Carmen Kivisild and Karl-Oskar Masing at Elnora they are looking for healthtech, medtech and biotech investors who are also interested in AI.
Ashley Rindsberg (Ashley Rindsberg - Wikipedia) is a novelist, essayist and freelance journalist and author of The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times's Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History.
He has just founded Bizzline, a place where early stage AI startups can build community for startups changing the world, namely a place that gives AI startups the power to tell their own stories in their own way.
DrugSense Analytics 📊
DrugSense Analytics (2020, India, Ireland) is creating an innovative drug development hub that merges quantum mechanics, docking, molecular dynamics and AI for unparalleled breakthroughs. They offer ✔️ Drug Discovery Analytics (3D structure optimization, virtual screening and molecular dynamics simulations, MD simulation, drug design and ADMET), ✔️ Molecular Docking (Protein-Ligand Docking, Protein-Protein Docking, Protein-Peptide Docking, Protein-Nucleic Acid Docking, Protein-Inhibitor Docking), ✔️ Cheminformatics Hub, ✔️ Bioinformatics Hub and ✔️ NGS Data Analytics (SNP detection, Variant Calling and De Novo Assembly).
DeepMetrics 🧮
DeepMetrics (Chile) is an advanced analytics Business Consulting and Services firm that provides disruptive solutions through cutting-edge technologies and was born from a group of Data Scientists and Data Engineers who believe that data, analytics and technology are key in order to make a deep impact on the performance of any organization.
Quasar Science Resources 🤝
Quasar Science Resources is a private company that provides consulting Software and System Engineering services for Scientific and Innovation projects. They provide high quality tailored-made services targeted at Research Centres, Universities and Private Companies looking to expand their activity domain.
They operate in the Madrid (Spain) area but their customers include national and European partners both in the public and private sectors. Their team of experts includes Computer System Analysts, Software and Data Archive Engineers and Scientists, covering a wide range of expertise.
Quasar Science Resources activities cover many different areas, including, scientific software development and data reduction techniques, handling and exploitation of scientific databases, archive engineering and data mining, computer systems engineering, including virtual machine infrastructure, network, data storage and backup.
Christopher Gnanakone 🎩 is an Investor, Ambassador and Member Select Committee of Boomtown Innovation Platforms (boomtownaccelerators.com), a Colorado-based startup accelerator that aims to discover and support promising health tech, internet, mobile, software and Internet of Things (IoT) startups.
Boomtown's custom-tailored open innovation platform helps organizations realize and maximize the value of innovation. For example,
PharmaJet’s innovative needle-free injection technology received FDA approval, to develop a comprehensive communications plan to generate interest in its proprietary technology, bolster credibility with retailers and pharmacists and establish the PharmaJet brand as the predominant needle-free technology on the market.
PharmaJet’s needle-free delivery system proves effective in a published study: where more than 3000 participants took part in the trial which showed that GEMCOVAC-OM administered with PharmaJet's Tropis boosts immune response.
The PharmaJet needle-free Injection system makes pharma products better with improved performance and faster to market.
Ferring Pharmaceuticals 🧫
Ferring Pharmaceuticals (1950, Malmö, Sweden) is a global pharmaceutical company interested in strategic partnerships and collaborations that provide new treatment options for patients. Ferring is interested in partnering across all its therapeutic areas:
Reproductive medicine & maternal health,
Gastroenterology/ Immunology,
Uro-oncology, and
Microbiome
in drug discovery technologies especially in AI (applications for new target ID, meta omic data analysis), novel chemical & biological libraries, target validation and gene editing tools and translational microbiome models/tools.
At Ferring they are already applying data analysis and ML models to predict clinical outcomes from microbiome data. Moreover, on 11 December, 2023 Ferring Pharmaceuticals and the Zürich-based microbiome translation company PharmaBiome announced a research & development collaboration to drive forward new microbiome-based biotherapeutics in the field of gastroenterology. PharmaBiome (2015) has developed a unique technology platform to select bacterial strains for the design of bacterial consortia as live biotherapeutic products with defined activities, the NicheMap and a co-cultivation approach that enables fast and scalable production. PharmaBiome’s programmes aim at a next generation of products that are independent of donor material and deliver exactly the consortium of bacterial strains with the desired activity and therapeutic effect.
Always regarding microbiome, on 8 May, 2023 Perring announced three oral presentations and one poster presentation at Digestive Disease Week for REBYOTA (fecal microbiota, live – jslm), that is a first-in-class single-dose microbiome-based treatment approved by the FDA for the prevention of recurrent C. difficile (C. diff) infection. The data analysis reviewed the safety of REBYOTA (previously known as RBX2660) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), as well as safety and efficacy in immunocompromised patients and when administered by colonoscopy. An additional analysis looked at microbiome compositional changes and clonal engraftment following treatment with REBYOTA in participants in the PUNCH CD3 Phase 3 clinical trial for REBYOTA (Four Analyses of Data for REBYOTA™ (fecal microbiota, live – jslm), the First FDA-Approved Microbiome-Based Treatment for the Prevention of Recurrent C. difficile Infection, Presented at DDW 2023). Participants were monitored for treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) for at least six months after treatment.
The analysis examined the necessity to differentiate among clonal populations to assess engraftment. Samples provided by REBYOTA-treated patients were assessed to determine if the species present after treatment were those present in the REBYOTA dose they received. The analysis showed that the clinical response in the Phase 3 trial was associated with clonal engraftment and Bacteroidia– and Clostridia-class bacteria were the most effective engrafters. The control analysis showed no significant clonal engraftment in placebo-treated participants.
Regarding AI, on May 19, 2021 Ferring Pharmaceuticals and CytoReason, an Israeli AI Drug Discovery company, announced a collaboration which aims to establish new treatment options for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This is the first collaboration between the two companies, pairing Ferring’s medical expertise with CytoReason’s AI platform to build cell-centered disease models (CytoReason Announces Collaboration with Ferring to Identify Novel Therapeutic Targets in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Using AI Technology).
Let’s talk about CytoReason now.
CytoReason Ltd
CytoReason (2016, Tel Aviv, Israel) is using molecular-level disease models to turn clinical data into biology, by mapping what the cells, genes and proteins are doing in a disease, tissue and treatment environment. CytoReason is developing the world’s only ML model aimed at re-defining understanding of the immune system and the cells that make it tick, by computationally simulating the cellular environment to stimulate discovery. CytoReason’s ML technology can rebuild lost cellular information from gene expression data and associate genes to specific cells.
Pfizer (ETR: PFE) announced in February 2022 that extended the collaboration with CytoReason that was first launched in 2019 (receiving a $20M investment and a $90M in funding over the next half decade via options to license its disease model as well as AI platform), in order to use the Israeli company’s digital models of the human immune system and diseases in Pfizer’s pursuit of developing innovative drugs. CytoReason said its solution has “provided Pfizer with multiple insights in a number of R&D programs across over 20 diseases".
Moreover, Summit Pharmaceuticals International, the drug research and development arm of Sumitomo Corporation one of the world's biggest general trading firms (TYO: 8053), also entered in 2021 in collaboration with CytoReason. And on January 23, 2023, CytoReason announced an expansion of its collaboration with Sanofi (EPA: SAN).
Finally, just this month, CytoReason has secured $80M (for a total of 130M) in funding to accelerate the development of its AI-powered platform for disease modeling and drug discovery. Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), Pfizer, OurCrowd and Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO) invested in the startup, which plans to use the funds to accelerate its growth (Nvidia, Pfizer Back AI Drug Discovery Startup).
Next week I will continue with the next update on AI-powered drug discovery. For the previous newsletters of this series of updates specifically on AI drug discovery in preclinical and clinical trials 👉