Artificial intelligence becomes a tool to manufacture medicines

The possibility of creating a medicine for dengue thanks to the Artificial Intelligence (AI) It is not science fiction and a European NGO recently launched in this project, an initiative that reflects that this technology has a place in the field of medicine.

The NGO Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative seeks treatments for diseases that generate little interest and in April launched a partnership with BenevolentAI, a British company that seeks to develop molecules thanks to the AI.

In early 2020, the Scottish company Exscientia, in partnership with the Japanese pharmaceutical company Sumitomo Dainippon, developed the first molecule “built” thanks to AI that entered a clinical trial.

“It is not something futuristic: artificial intelligence is a methodological approach to data processing that can be used in various stages of the development process of the drug industry”estimates Dr. Thomas Borel, director for scientific issues of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Companies in France (Leem).

On a visit to the Paris premises of French startup Iktos, founded in 2016, he makes it clear that an era is changing. In this company there are no microscopes or traditional biology apparatus or any employee in white coats.

Instead, computers work tirelessly analyzing data at a speed unattainable by any human being.

“The idea is to use data that already exists to obtain new molecules that are interesting, in a faster way”, explained Yann Gaston-Mathé, director of this company of which he is co-founder.

To do this, his team used a global database with the information of 100 million molecules. From these data “We created a model that will automatically generate new molecules and identify those that may be active for biological targets of interest”he explained.

Iktos has a molecule search platform thanks to the artificial intelligence that delivers data to pharmaceutical companies subscribed to this service.

Aqemia, a young company emerged from the PSL National Higher School in 2019 in France, for its part developed a platform to discover medicines thanks to statistical physics inspired by quantum.

“We use an artificial intelligence that we qualify as generative”highlighted its founder, the researcher Maximilien Levesque. “We invent molecules that are going to stick to a specific biological target that is causing a disease. Artificial intelligence feeds on physics: we need to know the physical nature of the molecule and the target to calculate their affinity”described.

While start-ups are at the forefront, laboratories are increasingly interested in this area. Proof of this are their investments in this sector.

The American giant Bristol-Myers Squibb reached an agreement with Exscientia last year and could give it more than 1,000 million dollars. In 2019, the Swiss laboratory Novartis and the computer giant Microsoft announced a collaboration agreement.

But that does not necessarily spell the end of laboratory chemistry. This new field faces significant difficulties, such as access to data that are likely to be exploited and the need to find specialists, who master artificial intelligence on the one hand and have knowledge of pharmacology on the other.

There is also a very important regulatory aspect, added Leem’s Thomas Borel. “For a medicine to be accepted, it is necessary that the regulatory systems recognize the value of the algorithm”, he pointed.

“Medications have been conceived with the help of computers for years”, Gaston-Mathé commented for his part, for whom his objective is to contribute “Additional tools to chemicals without wanting to replace man with machine.”

Source: AFP