AI-generated drug begins clinical trials as historic first

Insilico Medicine created the world’s first fully AI-generated drug, and it will launch clinical trials with human patients next week. The Hong Kong-based biotech firm calls it INS018_055, which would treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. CNBC says it affects roughly 100,000 US citizens and can lead to death in two to five years.

Many people use artificial intelligence systems to generate photos, images, text, and other media. Thanks to Insilico’s breakthrough, we now create medicines with AI! Soon, it could treat diseases that were uncurable years ago, improving healthcare worldwide. More importantly, your doctor may prescribe you an AI-generated treatment as the years pass.

This article will discuss Insilico’s new AI-generated drug. Later, I will show statements from the project researchers regarding their amazing breakthroughs.

How did Insilico create its AI-generated drug?

The first fully A.I.-generated drug enters clinical trials in human patients https://t.co/g9Ju0W9r4v

— CNBC (@CNBC) June 29, 2023

The health research company made an artificial intelligence software suite, Pharma.AI, for its latest project. Its homepage says the suite comprises three AI programs: PandaOmics, Chemistry42, and InClinico.

• PandaOmics identifies the parts of a virus that a drug must target.
• Chemistry42 designs new potential drug compounds that aim at PandaOmics’ targets.
• InClinico predicts the success rate of clinical trials and identifies trial design issues.

Believe it or not, Insilico Medicine is an NVIDIA Inception startup accelerator program member. Consequently, the graphics card company elaborated on the former’s breakthrough.

The tech firm says the startup used Pharma.AI to design and synthesize roughly 80 molecules. Identifying targets and determining a promising drug candidate took around 18 months.

As a result, it achieved “unprecedented success rates for preclinical drug candidates.” The biotech firm will soon run its AI-generated drug for Phase 2 clinical trials.

NVIDIA says Insilico Med will test its project on several hundred US and Chinese citizens with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Also, CNBC elaborated on the upcoming clinical trials.

The news outlet says the IPF medicine’s study “is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial taking place over 12 weeks in China.” Moreover, Insilico will expand its testing population to 60 subjects in 40 China and US areas.

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If this phase two study succeeds, the company will perform another with more participants. Later, it would conduct phase three studies with hundreds of patients.

The founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, Alex Zhavoronkov, said, “We expect to have results from the current Phase II trial next year.” However, he admitted it is difficult to predict when he could launch the next phases.

The disease is relatively rare, and patients must fit specific criteria. Nevertheless, he assured, “We are optimistic that this drug will be ready in the next few years.”

What do the researchers say about the AI-generated drug?

Zhoronkov told CNBC the discovery process for the new IPF medicine started in 2020. He and his team hoped to create a “moonshot” drug better than existing treatments.

The latter focuses on slowing progression and could cause uncomfortable side effects. Moreover, his company focused on this rare medical condition because of its implications for aging.

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The CEO explained further, “When this company was launched, we were focused on algorithms, developing the technology that could discover and design new molecules.”

“I never imagined in those early days that I would be taking my own AI drugs into clinical trials with patients. But we realized that in order to validate our AI platform, we needed to not only design a new drug for a new target but bring it into clinical trials to prove that our technology worked.”

“It is the first fully generative AI drug to reach human clinical trials, and specifically Phase II trials with patients,” the CEO said, “While there are other AI-designed drugs in trials, ours is the first drug with both a novel AI-discovered target and a novel AI-generated design.”

Conclusion

Hong Kong-based biotech company Insilico Medicine will launch clinical trials for the first-ever AI-generated drug. Hopefully, it could properly treat those with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was right when he said, “The age of AI has begun.” He wrote an article about artificial intelligence improving various sectors, especially education, and healthcare.

Insilico and other companies are developing AI medicines, which might appear in your local pharmacies soon. Learn more about the latest digital tips and trends at Inquirer Tech.