First Artificial Intelligence Created Drug To Face Clinical Trial
For the first time in the world, a drug molecule discovered by artificial intelligence (AI) will be tested in humans.
A Japanese pharmaceutical firm Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma and a British start-up, Exscientia created the drug molecule.
They developed the drug molecule for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
This new AI drug took only 12 months to get to trial, while a typical drug development takes about five years to get to trial.
Prof Andrew Hopkins, chief executive at Exscienta, described the new AI drug as a “key milestone in drug discovery.”
Nowadays, artificial intelligence is being used in the diagnosis and analysis of scans and data. But this is the first time its directly being used in the innovation a new medicine.
They used an algorithm that screens through potential compounds and a huge database of parameters to create the DSP-1181 molecule for obsessive-compulsive disorder.
To precisely engineer a drug, billions of decisions are needed to find the right molecules. This is made easy through the application of artificial intelligence. Since the algorithm is agnostic, it can be used for any disease.
In Japan, the drug will undergo its first trials. If successful, more global tests will be carried out.
The firm is also working on potential drugs for cardiovascular diseases and cancer. They are hoping to have another drug molecule ready for human trials by the end of this year.
Prof Hopkins believes that by the end of this decade, most of the new drugs will be created using artificial intelligence.
“I think AI has huge potential to enhance and accelerate drug discovery,” said Paul Workman, chief executive of The Institute of Cancer Research, who was not involved in the research.
Exscientia is a leading pharmatech company founded in 2012. Being a full-stack AI drug discovery company, they are the first to automate drug discovery.