Cooperation among local pharmaceutical companies and artificial intelligence firms to develop new drugs are heating up from the start of 2021.
One drugmaker after another has already signed an agreement with AI-based medicine developers to shorten the time and cost required for producing new drug candidates.
For starters, Hyundai Pharm announced Wednesday that it had signed an agreement to develop new AI drugs with Pharminogen. Under the accord, Hyundai Pharm plans to discover new targets and derive new drug candidates using Pharminogen's AI platform. The two companies expect to find a candidate that can enter non-clinical trials within six months.
Pharminogen discovers various new drug compounds through its LuciNet platform built with quantum chemistry-based software and bio big data. Lucinet consists of a variety of platforms. They include LuciNet GaiaDB, a database that contains compound information and biological information such as disease genes and proteins, LuciNet Onco, an anticancer drug discovery platform, LuciNet Kinase, a signaling protein prediction platform, and LuciNet Meta, a platform that predicts the metabolic state of drugs in vivo.
On Jan. 6, Handok announced that it had signed an AI-based drug development contract with Deargen. Handok, which signed a contract with Deargen on Dec. 29, plans to use AI to develop various treatments for diseases, starting with anticancer drugs.
Deargen plans to identify a candidate substance for a target protein using DearDTI, its AI drug development platform, and Handok will conduct additional verification studies on the substance under the contract. Deargen received the industry’s attention early last year by becoming the first company in the world to announce the effects of Remdesivir in treating Covid-19 using deep learning AI technology.
Other companies have started to use AI new drug development technology to develop a treatment for Covid-19, as such technology makes it possible to discover new drug candidates in a short period.
Hanmi Science, the holding company of Hanmi Pharmaceutical, signed a joint research contract with Syntekabio this month to cooperate on a Covid-19 treatment's clinical development. The deal followed the memorandum of understanding signed by the two companies in September last year.
Hanmi Science plans to verify the feasibility of developing a candidate substance for Covid-19 treatment using Syntekabio's Deepmatcher, an AI drug development platform.
The two companies have also promised to expand indications in addition to the Covid-19 virus over the next two years.
While many companies are still attempting to develop new drugs using AI, some have already taken the first step in their development process.
On Jan. 7, SK Chemicals announced it had succeeded in discovering a treatment candidate for rheumatoid arthritis through joint research with Standigm, and applied for a patent for the candidate substance.
The two companies signed an agreement to co-develop a treatment for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and rheumatoid arthritis in July 2017. SK Chemicals said that it had since been preparing for research by establishing an internal open innovation taskforce.
According to SK Chemicals, it repositioned a drug substance using AI technology to discover the candidate substance. The company explained it was a faster and more efficient development process than developing conventional new drugs as researchers discovered an effective drug candidate on rheumatoid arthritis among treatments that had already confirmed their safety.
SK Chemicals stressed that it plans to discover additional drug candidates for NASH and rheumatoid arthritis by continuing the joint research.