Using artificial intelligence to find new drugs faster

Peptides are the hottest area of new drug development. Medications derived from these “short” naturally occurring proteins – a midpoint between small molecules and large antibodies — are highly targeted and often much less toxic than other treatments. It’s no wonder, then, that peptide-derived drugs have become a $20 billion market, expected to grow to $43 billion by 2024, according to Zion Market Research.

Insulin is probably the most famous peptide drug. Newer peptide-derived medicines like Victoza and Byetta also treat diabetes; Zoladex, Lupron and Sandostatin are used to fight cancer. Despite the promise, however, development of peptide-derived medicines can take many years, leaving critically ill patients no choice but to rely on older, less body-friendly medicines. Jerusalem-based Pepticom has worked since 2011 on anew way to accelerate peptide-based drug discovery. The company, which combines expertise in chemistry, artificial intelligence and big data, just raised $5 million to make its process even faster. Remarkably,this early-stage biotech startup is already generating revenue. Like winning the lottery Modern drug discovery is no longer about combining elements in a test tube and testing the mixture on some unlucky lab animal. Pharmaceutical companies now have access to massive chemical libraries, from which they can filter billions of possible protein and peptide combinations.-- More...

American Chemical Society——Bio and Archives

American Chemical Society, ACS is a congressionally chartered independent membership organization which represents professionals at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry and sciences that involve chemistry.