by
Jorge Mercado
Thursday, June 20, 2024
Artificial intelligence has been a key topic of discussion in the technology sector for the past few years, primarily focused on how it can help optimize software-as-a-service companies across a range of industries, from finance to real estate.
But one of the key things AI excels at is its ability to automate repetitive tasks, process large data sets faster than humans, and handle complex calculations – all of which are helpful to companies in the business of drug discovery.
So the biotech industry has taken notice, and AI is starting to play a role in helping these companies find breakthrough treatments.
“If you had asked me 10 years ago about the role of AI in drug discovery, I probably would have said it was minimal and that we would always trust good chemists and good biologists with good skills and intuition for what AI can do,” David Allison, managing director at Westlake Village BioPartners, told the Business Times.
“But what we've learned, especially over the last decade, is that the convergence of technology, drug development, biology, chemistry and high-throughput screening can be done much more efficiently with larger data sets than any individual scientist could do alone.”
Westlake Village BioPartners is a venture capital firm focused on biotechnology startups in the Conejo Valley and greater Los Angeles area.
The firm has raised $1.3 billion since its founding in September 2018, including a third fund worth $450 million due to launch in July 2023.
Allison said Westlake researched its portfolio companies ahead of last year's annual meeting.
result?
More than half of companies are using some form of AI in the drug discovery process.
This is not because Westlake is considering investing in AI-powered biotech companies, but because that's exactly where the industry is heading.
“We'll be making other investments over the next couple of years, and I'd be surprised if most of those companies aren't involved in AI in some way,” Allison said.
“It's not that hard for a human to do a simple literature search using known information. But if we can really dig into that data and use more data to help with patient selection, clinical trial design, all sorts of things, I think we'll ultimately be able to get better medicines to patients.”
Allison said that where AI has really helped the drug discovery process, especially in the last few years, is by giving chemists and biologists AI techniques to make better decisions in the drug discovery process, rather than necessarily believing that automation has all the answers.
“I think this will allow us to be more efficient and effective. Whether that translates into better medicines remains to be seen, but I'm confident we're eventually heading there,” Allison said.
AI not only plays a big role in biotech startups, but also at Thousand Oaks-based Amgen, one of the world's largest biotech companies.
“We expect AI to play an important role,” an Amgen spokesperson told The Business Times.
“We are in an era where drug discovery is rapidly moving from a world dominated by a 'discover and test' approach in the lab to a 'model and design' approach. Leveraging methods such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to rapidly screen targets and design new safe, effective and well-behaved molecules that can be validated in the lab has the potential to reduce cycle times and increase success rates.”
Amgen has invested for over a decade in building early stage research capabilities in drug design and large multi-omics data sets.
“[This]has advanced both our ability to design therapeutic proteins that have desired effects in the human body and our ability to understand disease biology at a fundamental level,” a company spokesman said.
“We built that foundation with the confidence that eventually new science would strengthen it.”
The spokesperson added that in Amgen's protein drug development, AI and machine learning have cut antibody discovery time in half and reduced protein engineering and optimization timelines by more than 70%.
“We use ML predictive analytics to interpret molecular/omics and anonymized phenotypic/real-world data to better understand diseases and find drug targets. deCODE Genetics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amgen, uses ML algorithms to interpret population-scale omics data,” the spokesperson said.
Last October, Amgen inked an agreement to acquire Horizon Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on finding treatments to address the critical needs of people suffering from rare, autoimmune and serious inflammatory diseases.
As such, following the closing of the transaction, Amegn has launched a new therapeutic portfolio focused on treating rare diseases.
In December, Amgen promoted Dr. David M. Rees to the role of the company's first executive vice president and chief technology officer, with responsibility for “accelerating the use of technology and artificial intelligence across not only its global healthcare organization but all aspects of the company.”
Rees previously served as executive vice president of research and development from 2018-2023.
“These emerging technologies provide a tremendous opportunity to rethink how we organize and operate many areas of our business, and multiple AI-driven initiatives are already being implemented across the enterprise to have a significant impact,” Amgen said.
Another area where AI can contribute to not only biotech but the entire healthcare industry is cost reduction.
In biotech, especially start-ups, the process of finding a treatment and bringing it to market can take a decade, meaning companies can burn money for a long time before seeing any profits.
So cost savings are important, especially for biotech startups. But Allison said the aim isn't to use AI to replace jobs, as some fear, but rather to make the drug discovery process more efficient.
“This is not about job cuts, and it's hard to put a hard number on it (how much AI can save), but healthcare is a huge industry and it's ripe for efficiencies, and I think AI will be a very important tool in that move toward efficiencies that will benefit everyone,” Allison said.
Email: jmercado@pacbiztimes.com
