Exscientia Archives - Medical Design Sourcing

10 pioneering companies implementing AI in drug discovery, development and beyond

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The pharma industry is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline drug discovery and development, although adoption remains early. The field, however, is rapidly expanding. The global AI in drug discovery market was worth about $1.1 billion last year but could grow at a 30% clip from 2023 to 2030, according to Grand View Research.

In the years to come, AI could find use to discover an array of drug targets while improving drug developers’ ability to design molecules based on fine-grained criteria. Here, we spotlight several companies exploring the use of AI in drug discovery and drug development.

1. Exscientia

Oxford, UK–based Exscientia (Nasdaq: EXAI) has pioneered AI in small-molecule drug design. The company has expanded its AI-based platform to develop novel therapeutic antibodies through generative AI design. In early 2020, the company reported the first AI-d…

4 top drug discovery innovations of 2022

Prix Galien

Late last year, the Galien Foundation highlighted several drug discovery innovations in its annual Prix Galien USA Award Winners, which specifically highlighted drugs from Regeneron and Amgen as well as a platform from Exscientia and the incubators BioLabs and LabCentral.

The foundation recently hosted a webinar featuring several executives from the respective winning companies discussing their view on their respective drug discovery innovations.

1. Inmazeb: The first FDA-approved Ebola drug

The Galien Foundation chose Regeneron’s (Nasdaq:REGN) Inmazeb (atoltivimab, maftivimab and odesivimab-ebgn) as the best biotechnology product of 2022. The antibody cocktail became the first FDA-approved treatment for Ebola (Zaire Ebolavirus) for pediatric and adult patients in 2020.

There were several hurdles involved in developing Inmazeb, said Neil Stahl, EVP of R&D at Regeneron Phar…

And the best medical device innovation of 2022 goes to…

The Cala Health Cala Trio [Image courtesy of Cala Health]

The Galien Foundation last night honored Cala Health’s Cala Trio essential tremor treatment wearable as 2022’s best medical device innovation.

The foundation describes its Prix Galien awards as the global equivalent of the Nobel Prize for the life science industry.

The Cala Trio offers a non-invasive method to send signals to the brain to treat essential tremor rather than deep-brain stimulation. It was one of two dozen devices that were nominees in this year’s competition. (Here is Medical Design & Outsourcing‘s roundup of the full 24.)

More about Cala Health and its Cala Trio

MDO recently interviewed Cala Health co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Kate Rosenbluth and CEO Renee Ryan about the creation of the technology. The Cala Trio has FDA clearance as an external upper limb tremor stimulator, available by…

Exscientia raises $225M for drug discovery AI

AI-powered drug discovery company Exscientia announced that it completed a $225 Series D funding round.

SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the funding round, while previous lead investors, Novo Holdings and funds managed by Blackrock, contributed. Other investors included Mubadala Investment Company, Farallon Capital, Casdin Capital, GT Healthcare Capital, Marshall Wace, Pivotal bioVenture Partners, Laurion Capital, Hongkou and Bristol-Myers Squibb, according to a news release.

Additionally, SoftBank is providing Exscientia with a further $300 million equity commitment available to be drawn by the Oxford, England-based company at its discretion.

Exscientia utilizes AI to engineer new medicines, with the technology working in target identification, drug design and patient selection. The company has put two fully AI-designed drugs into clinical trials and has more than 20 active programs in its pipeline.

The company plans to use the funds raised in the roun…