"AI Pharma"--a game-breaker who broke the involution of innovative drug R&D?

Drug discovery has always been a high-investment, high-risk, long-cycle process
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In recent years, the return on investment of pharmaceutical research and development has been declining, and the time and cost of developing a new drug have gradually increased
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Technology has played an important role in the development of drugs from "accidental discoveries" to people who can create new drugs through drug molecular design
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With the arrival of the millennium, computer-aided drug design has greatly improved the efficiency of research and development
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There are two types of technical models for R&D by means of computing—one is artificial intelligence methods based on computing power, algorithms, and data, and the other is high-precision computational chemistry methods based on physical models
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The former essentially uses models such as machine learning to allow AI algorithms to find a path to solve problems in continuous optimization iterations, and then optimize the entire process of drug development; the latter calculates drug molecules and targets from the level of microscopic particles such as molecules and atoms.
The interaction force between molecules, with the help of AI to improve computing speed and accuracy
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1 AI Pharma IPOs and Financing Momentum are on the rise AI pharma companies are springing up like mushrooms after a spring rain.
In 2020 alone, startups in this field have attracted $1.
9 billion in investment, the overall AI drug development market has grown by 61.
1%, and AI drugs The growth of designers was a staggering 130.
1%
.
Table 1.
The graph of total financing in the field of AI pharmaceuticals, source: Signify Research Table 2.
Summary of AI/computational pharmaceutical companies listed in 2020, source: Yiou Think Tank Table 3.
Summary of AI/computational pharmaceutical companies listed in 2021, source: It can be seen from the above chart of Yiou Think Tank that the overall financing amount in the AI ​​pharmaceutical field is increasing year by year, and the momentum of listing and financing in this field is booming.

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According to relevant forecasts, the global artificial intelligence application market in drug development is expected to reach US$5.
1 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 29.
6%, an increase of more than US$3.
6 billion over the market size in 2020
.
Table 4.
Artificial intelligence drug development market, source: Emersion Insights 2 There are many entrants There have been some blockbuster transactions recently.
The author will briefly list them below to explore the current situation of AI in the field of drug development
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On January 10, 2022, Sanofi and Exscientia established a research collaboration and license agreement to develop up to 15 novel small molecule drug candidates across oncology and immunology
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Exscientia provides an end-to-end AI-driven platform using actual patient samples
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In addition to target discovery, Exscientia will lead small molecule drug design and optimization, with Sanofi primarily responsible for preclinical and clinical development, manufacturing, and commercialization
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Exscientia received an upfront payment of $100 million for the transaction, which could total approximately $5.
2 billion if all milestones are met
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On the same day, Merck also entered into a partnership with a drug discovery company called Absci
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Absci leverages an AI-driven integrated drug creation platform to manufacture the corresponding enzymes using non-standard amino acid technology for biomimetic proteins
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Merck can nominate up to three targets for a drug discovery partnership
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Absci will receive $610 million in upfront payments, milestone payments, research funding and tiered sales royalties, among others
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On January 3, 2022, Adagene's collaboration with Exelixis reached a major milestone, established as early as 2021 to discover novel masked ADC drug candidates based on Adagene's proprietary Safebody precision masking technology
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Safebodies can overcome many of the safety and tolerability issues associated with antibody therapies, effectively increasing antibody specificity while minimizing targeted non-tumor toxicity in healthy tissues
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Adagene received an upfront payment of $11 million and milestone payments of $3 million
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On December 16, 2021, Valence Discovery closed a $7 million seed round
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The financing is an increase of $1.
5 million over the previous round, bringing Valence’s total funding to $8.
5 million
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The funds will support the expansion of Valence's AI-based generative chemistry engine, help expand partnerships, and advance internal drug discovery efforts
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On December 14, 2021, Akoya Biosciences and PathAI collaborated to advance the discovery and validation of novel predictive biomarkers for immunotherapy
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The collaboration will use Akoya's high-throughput spatial phenotyping platform Phenoptic and PathAI's AI tools and algorithms to explore spatial biology and deep data mining to identify patients most likely to respond to drug treatments in clinical trials
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3 The popularity of domestic investment continues to rise Jingtai Technology completed the D round of financing in August 2021, financing nearly 400 million US dollars
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Jingtai Technology is a drug research and development technology company that drives innovation with digitalization and intelligence.
It uses its integrated artificial intelligence drug research and development platform to help the discovery and development of innovative drugs, shorten research and development time, and improve research and development efficiency and quality
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In the past 21 years, it has successively reached cooperation with Chia Tai Tianqing, China Resources Pharmaceutical Research Institute,
etc.
Insilicon completed its Series C financing in June 2021, raising nearly $255 million
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Insilicon is an AI drug developer that uses end-to-end artificial intelligence to identify targets, generate new molecules (Generative Chemistry) and synthetic biology data (Generative Biology), and predict clinical trial outcomes
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In 2019, Insilicon discovered an effective inhibitor targeting a kinase target, DDR1.
It took only 21 days from selecting a target to forming a potential new drug molecule
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The result, published in Nature Biotechnology, is listed as one of the landmark events in the rise of AI pharmaceuticals
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Wangshizhizhi completed the B+ round of financing in April 2021, raising tens of millions of dollars
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StoneWise, founded in 2018, is a technology company that uses artificial intelligence technology to drive the research and development of new drugs
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In 2021, it has successively established cooperative relations with Tide Pharmaceuticals, Hexion Pharmaceuticals, and Hisun Pharmaceuticals
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At the just-concluded JPM conference, Zhou Jielong, CEO of Wangshizhizhi, said: "Large platform and large system is the consistent concept of Wangshizhi's intelligent system research and development.
Through the combination of software, system and data, the advantages of AI in relevant application scenarios can be fully utilized
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In addition, Xingyao Technology completed strategic financing in August 2021, but did not disclose the specific amount
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Xingkang Yuanbi completed its A+ round of financing in July 2021, raising tens of millions of dollars
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As a new company established in the past two years, it is rising like a new star
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Figure 5.
The number of AI/computing pharmaceutical companies to cooperate with pharmaceutical companies.
Source: Yiou Think Tank In addition to traditional pharmaceutical companies, companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, Baidu, and Huawei have also joined
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Ali has medical cloud AI, which is used for gene sequencing, thyroid nodule identification, lung nodule identification, digital simulation of clinical experiments and other fields
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Tencent's main focus is Yunshen Zhiyao, which is used in drug research and development processes such as protein structure screening
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Byte has AILab, based on AI algorithms, to support the discovery and manufacture of research drugs
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Baidu's platform is Baitu Biotechnology, and Huawei's EIHealth is used for drug research and development, clinical research, etc.

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4 Future and Prospects According to the current momentum, more new drug R&D companies with AI and computing as the main driving force will be born in the future, and in addition to providing outsourcing services for pharmaceutical companies, there will be more AI/computing pharmaceutical companies It will move from service to biotech based on independent research and development pipelines.
It can independently develop new drugs, and then cooperate with big Pharma for commercialization in the later stage, or establish cooperation at the beginning to jointly develop new drugs
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At the same time, the fate of the Internet giants is also eye-catching.
Tencent, Ali, and Huawei have also joined in.
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Everyone is standing on a new outlet and witnessing the arrival of the next great era
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References: 1.
AI Drug Development Market Projected to Reach $5.
1 Billion by 2025 2.
Exscientia, Sanofi collaborate to develop precision-engineered medicines 3.
Absci collaborates with Merck for AI drug creation 4.
Valence Discovery acquires $8.
5M in seed funding for chemistry engine 5.
Adagene reaches key milestone in ADC collaboration with Exelixis 6.
Akoya Biosciences and PathAI collaborate to develop new predictive biomarkers