Model Medicines partnered with LEO Pharma to accelerate drug discovery
The San Diego-based AI drug discovery startup landed a deal with Danish drug maker LEO Pharma to identify possible candidates for dermatology and inflammatory conditions, per MedCity News. Model Medicines will use its tech to sift through a pool of more than 15,000 drug candidates that have made it past phase I clinical trials, but haven't yet made it to market.
AI holds promise for speeding up the drug discovery process by mining through data more effectively — while helping pharma companies cut down on the steep costs of bringing a drug to market:
Drug development is a lengthy, drawn-out process — but AI can accelerate the R&D process by more quickly parsing through vasts amount of data. As researchers contend with a growing quantity of clinical and scientific data, pharma companies' conventional techniques for drug discovery and development have proven to be less efficient over time. But AI platforms can comb through clinical research data faster to make novel and more effective predictions than traditional methods. This makes AI especially appealing for pharma firms, considering it takes companies an average of 10 years to bring a drug to the marketplace — in part due to lengthy discovery and development processes.
The cost of commercializing a drug is hefty — and AI drug discovery companies could help pharma companies substantially cut back on costs. The average cost to bring a drug to market can amount to nearly $3 billion. But a survey conducted by Carnegie Mellon suggests AI could curb drug discovery costs for companies by as much as 70%. So, we think that integrating AI solutions that expedite pre-clinical trial processes should provide some padding to offset the high price tag of bringing a drug to market — thus reducing the overall R&D costs for pharma firms in the long run.
The Model Medicines-LEO Pharma deal highlights a growing trend of drug makers turning to AI developers to streamline drug discovery — and we predict pharma companies will start acquiring startups to bring these capabilities in-house.
The biggest names in pharma are placing their bets on AI for drug discovery startups: San-Francisco-based Atomwise — an AI startup making strides in drug discovery and design — scored deals with pharma giants Bayer, Merck, and AbbVie. And while we think that more pharma companies will seek partnerships with AI firms to curb costs and accelerate drug discovery and development, we think some massive pharma giants — like Pfizer, which has already made moves to collaborate with a number of AI companies — will seek to acquire some of these firms to bring their AI capabilities in-house.
We know that deep-pocketed pharma companies aren't shy when it comes to acquisitions: Through the beginning of December 2019, pharma and biotech companies spent a record $342 billion on M&A endeavors, according to MarketWatch.
This article originally appeared on Business Insider, prior to the rebrand of Repurpose.AI to Model Medicines, read the full article here.
