Biotech firm Insilico Medicine has initiated human trials for a generative AI-discovered medicine called INS018_055. The drug aims to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a lung disease that causes irreversible scarring of lung tissue. The medicine has successfully passed safety tests and is now in phase II clinical trials in the U.S. and China.
Insilico Medicine, a generative AI-driven company, has been using AI to design new drugs since 2016. The company developed a generative adversarial network (GAN) to create algorithms for generating new drug ideas using the Pharma.AI platform. The AI was used to identify the target and molecular structure of INS018_055, which showed promising results in Phase I tests. The drug is now being tested for effectiveness and safety in a randomized, double-blind study involving 60 subjects with IPF.
Applying generative AI to biology is a new and rapidly growing field. Variational AI, a drug discovery startup, used generative AI to develop and patent small molecules that could potentially treat COVID-19. Nvidia, a key player in the medical AI space, partnered with Insilico Medicine to bring generative AI to pharmaceuticals. Nvidia’s BioNeMo framework and generative AI model, ProT-VAE, were used to rapidly create protein designs for medical drugs. Insilico Medicine also utilized Nvidia’s DGX server system to develop their algorithms.
Insilico Medicine’s development of a generative AI-discovered medicine represents a significant milestone in drug discovery. The company plans to continue advancing this therapy to help patients and demonstrate the value of generative AI in drug development. The application of generative AI to medical research has vast potential and is gaining momentum in the industry.