As previously reported, one silver lining of COVID-19 has been the increase in collaboration, specifically in the AI Biotech space. The last week has brought a slew of announcements of new collaborative efforts as biotech companies ramp up their research and production for antibodies, vaccines, tests, and more. Here is some news from this week that specifically relates to firms doing high impact work using AI:
Using an AI system, AbCellera has tested the antibodies in over 5 million cells, identified over 500 human antibodies which recognized the COVID-19 virus, sequenced them, and tested them, resulting in the 24 most viable for development - in just over three weeks. The company is developing the antibodies with Eli Lilly, hoping to get to first human dosing in just four months total.
Current Health's remote patient monitoring platform will be utilized by Mayo Clinic to accelerate identification of COVID-19 positive patients, predict symptoms, and predict disease severity. The collaborating will utilize Current Health's existing patient database and AI-based algorithms developed by Mayo Clinic, and specifically seeks to understand how the virus develops. Interestingly, Mayo Clinic will also become an investor in Current Health as a component of this partnership.
Drug discovery firm BioDuro and AI firm neoX are establishing an AI-based synthetic antibody discovery platform. The companies hope to enable their pharmaceutical partners to shorten timelines of antibody-based drug development programs and get drugs into the clinic faster. The companies are also working with other partners to extend the technology into antibody design for immune cell therapies such as CAR-T and TCR-T for cancer use.
