First drug-candidate compounds discovered using AI licensed for development

Feb 7 2018

Insilico Medicine, Inc. ("Insilico"), a Baltimore-based next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) company specializing in the application of deep learning for drug discovery, announces that Juvenescence.AI, its joint venture with Juvenescence Limited ("Juvenescence"), has licensed its first compound family for clinical development. This is one of five compound families that Juvenescence.AI is able to license each year under its license agreement with Insilico.

"The selection of our first compound family is a landmark event for Juvenescence, and a broader comment on the potential of AI to transform the drug discovery and development industry" commented Jim Mellon, Chairman of Juvenescence.

This deal is a result of a deep collaboration between the senior drug developers at Juvenescence and AI experts at Insilico and signifies a new era in drug discovery where highly sophisticated AI finds viable drug candidates. In less than six months the teams have identified a valuable molecular target for a specific age-associated disease area, and are now working to identify other promising molecules for a variety of targets and perform validation.

Dr Greg Bailey, CEO of Juvenescence said: "This has been a very exciting time for the team of drug developers at Juvenescence as we work with Insilico to change how drug are discovered. This constitutes more validation of Insilico's ability to find novel drugs. It is also speaking to the quality of the relationship between our two companies both focused on changing how mankind ages."

JAI-001 and its analogues, have demonstrated in vitro activity in assays directly relevant to aging and age-related diseases.

"The team at Insilico Medicine is very excited to be working with Juvenescence. As a company, it has centuries of drug discovery and development experience, and has provided our team with valuable guidance. We are very happy to see that some of the top pharmaceutical industry executives are now focusing their efforts on aging and artificial intelligence", said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, Founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, Inc.