PHARMA TECH
PR Newswire | January 09, 2024
AION Labs, the first-of-its-kind venture studio spearheading the adoption of AI technologies and computational science to solve therapeutic challenges, announced today a new strategic partnership with Amiti Ventures, one of the leading early-stage venture capital firms in Israel. The partnership further strengthens the alliance of global leaders in pharma, biotech, and technology investment, expanding its offering as a venture studio and partner for new startups.
"With a proven track record of identifying the best teams for the mission and investing early in the most innovative deep tech startups that shape the future, Amiti Ventures will bring important complementary capabilities and expert investor knowledge to the AION Labs partnership," said Mati Gill, CEO of AION Labs. "We thank Amiti for its vote of confidence in our model of innovation for groundbreaking AI and computational biotech ventures. We further appreciate Amiti's recognition that Israel's ecosystem is poised to lead the world in bringing AI and biotech together to solve our biggest drug discovery challenges."
By joining forces with Amiti, AION Labs is enhancing its expertise and capabilities in the deep tech and computational technology domains, areas that are critical to the success of biotech innovation. Amiti's extensive experience and track record in these fields will bring invaluable investor knowledge and insights to AION Labs, enabling it to more effectively develop and support early-stage startups focused on AI and computational biology. Amiti's first investment in the venture studio will entail investment in DenovAI Biotech's Seed round of funding. Launched in 2022, DenovAI is developing an AI-powered biophysics solution for de novo antibody and protein design.
AION Labs builds and invests in early-stage startup teams focused on AI and computational biology in drug discovery and development, offering them top-notch resources and mentorship while working closely with them to develop new technologies that meet the most significant challenges in the pharmaceutical industry. The partnership with Amiti Ventures will help AION Labs to advance healthcare towards patient-centric precision medicine and create a significant contribution to the health and well-being of humankind by helping to bring new treatments to market faster and more efficiently.
"We believe that AION Labs is uniquely positioned to identify the biggest challenges to accelerate drug discovery and development and then evaluate the best computational bio approaches and entrepreneurs," said Ben Rabinowitz, Founder and Managing Partner of Amiti Ventures. "AION Labs' venture studio model bridges the gap between outstanding academic research, huge leaps forward in generative AI, and the biggest challenges and opportunities in the development of new medicines, and we look forward to working closely with our new partners to make this a reality.
"We also have been amazed by the can-do spirit of the AION Labs team," added Rabinowitz. "It is that readiness to create, pull themselves up by the bootstraps and forge ahead with amazing innovation that makes AION and Israel's entire startup ecosystem so special."
About AION Labs
AION Labs is a first-of-its-kind alliance of Astrazeneca, Merck, Pfizer, Teva, the Israel Biotech Fund, Amiti Ventures, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), powered by BioMed X with the support of the Israeli Government via the Israel Innovation Authority, that have come together with one clear mission: to create and adopt groundbreaking new AI technologies that will transform the process of drug discovery and development in order to contribute to the health and well-being of all people world-wide.
AION Labs is a unique venture hub where brilliant innovators and scientist-founders convene from around the world to solve the biggest R&D challenges guided by years of accumulated know-how, data and experience in pharma. The lab leverages its partners' wealth of knowledge and a new multidisciplinary mindset with the ingenuity, agility and innovative power of Israel's startup ecosystem, to develop strong companies with clear long-term strategies, that will pave the way to the future of healthcare. AION Labs cultivates innovation from within; its unique venture creation process bridges the gap between outstanding academic research in the field of AI and the biggest R&D needs in the discovery and development of new medicines for the benefit of patients.
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RESEARCH
PR Newswire | January 08, 2024
Isomorphic Labs, a digital biology company with a mission to redefine drug discovery using the power of artificial intelligence, today announced that it has entered into a strategic research collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company. This marks Isomorphic Labs' first pharmaceutical partnership.
Under the terms of the agreement, Isomorphic Labs will partner with Lilly to discover small molecule therapeutics against multiple targets and will receive an upfront cash payment of $45 million. Isomorphic Labs is eligible to receive up to $1.7 billion in performance-based milestone payments, excluding the upfront payment and any subsequent tiered royalties of up to low double digits on net sales.
"We're thrilled to embark on this partnership and apply our proprietary technology platform, the next generation of AlphaFold, and access to massive computing power to Lilly's development programs," said Demis Hassabis, CEO and founder of Isomorphic Labs. "The focus we share on advancing groundbreaking drug design approaches and appreciation of state-of-the-art science makes this partnership particularly compelling."
Isomorphic Labs operates autonomously within Alphabet, with its own dedicated resources and exclusive focus on the application of AI to drug discovery. The company is reimagining the entire drug discovery process from first principles with an AI-first approach, working to build powerful new predictive and generative models of biological phenomena to anticipate how drugs will perform and design novel molecules.
Building on the success of AlphaFold and working in collaboration with Google DeepMind, Isomorphic Labs has made remarkable progress in developing the Next Generation of AlphaFold. This new iteration of AlphaFold expands beyond proteins to include small molecules and nucleic acids. Through deep integration of this next generation AlphaFold with other breakthrough AI models developed at Isomorphic Labs, the company is able to better understand the underlying biological mechanisms of drug targets, and rationally design novel therapeutics.
ABOUT ISOMORPHIC LABS
Isomorphic Labs is an autonomous subsidiary of Alphabet that was launched from Alphabet's DeepMind in 2021 to build on the success of AlphaFold, the company's groundbreaking work in protein folding. That work was heralded as the 'Breakthrough of the Year' by Science and 'Method of the Year' by Nature in 2021. Based in London and now with a second location in Lausanne, Switzerland, Isomorphic Labs was founded and is led by AI pioneer Demis Hassabis, who also co-founded and leads Google DeepMind. As pioneers in digital biology, the company's mission is to use AI to accelerate drug discovery and ultimately find cures for some of humanity's most devastating diseases. Using its AI-first approach to drug discovery and biology, the company's ambition is to advance a new era of medical breakthroughs.
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PHARMA TECH
PR Newswire | January 09, 2024
Flagship Pioneering, the bioplatform innovation company, and Samsung today announced a collaboration aimed at fostering cutting-edge biopharmaceutical innovation poised to transform the world of healthcare through groundbreaking advancements in translational science and medicine.
Through this collaboration, Samsung will work alongside Flagship-founded companies, leveraging Samsung's leading technologies and capabilities to accelerate first and best-in-class therapies. The newly formed strategic partnership is an expansion of the ongoing cooperation between Samsung and Flagship. The collaboration between Samsung and Flagship leverages the expertise of both organizations in the areas of life science technology, artificial intelligence, and CDMO services, and extends across Flagship's ecosystem of companies.
Key Highlights of the Collaboration:
Revolutionary Technology: The collaboration will leverage state-of-the-art technology including artificial intelligence, translational medicine, access to high quality clinical samples and Samsung's clinical trials infrastructure, and investment by Samsung in Flagship-founded companies.
Shared Vision: Flagship Pioneering and Samsung share a common vision of transforming conventional drug discovery and development approaches to help bring new targeted therapeutic solutions to patients. The collaboration is driven by a commitment to pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the bio-pharmaceutical industry.
"This collaboration represents a significant milestone in the pursuit of innovation and scientific excellence," said Stephen Berenson, Managing Partner, Flagship Pioneering. "As partners, we will bring together Flagship Pioneering's unparalleled expertise in inventing and developing revolutionary bioplatform companies with Samsung's strategic capabilities to reshape and empower the bio-pharmaceutical landscape, ultimately resulting in bigger leaps for patient care."
"This newly formed collaboration is an important evolution of the ongoing relationship between two companies," said Jaywoo Kim, executive vice president, Samsung C&T. "We look forward to seeing the accelerating effect of Samsung's various technical expertise and extensive commercial capabilities on the future innovations Flagship and its ecosystem of companies will bring to market."
About Flagship Pioneering:
Flagship Pioneering is a biotechnology company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $70 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $3.6 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $27 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions.
About Samsung C&T:
Samsung C&T Corporation, a dynamic player in industries ranging from construction, trading, fashion and resorts, is actively expanding its portfolio with strategic investments in the biopharmaceutical industry. Since its investing in Samsung Biologics and Bioepis, Samsung Biologics' CDMO production capacity has grown to over 600 kilo liters and contribute greatly to the stabilization of the biopharmaceutical supply chain. In addition, Samsung Bioepis has improved the accessibility of many patients around the world by successfully launching seven biosimilar products. Samsung C&T will continue investment in innovative technologies and businesses that contribute to 'improving quality of life' in various areas of bio & healthcare.
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