Artificial intelligence has helped in developing a drug that can cure COVID-19 patients

• Insilico Medicine, a US-based biotech startup has nominated a drug for pre-clinical trials.
• The drug has been developed to treat COVID-19 patients.
• The company has developed the drug with the help of artificial intelligence.

Insilico Medicine, a biotech startup from the United States has nominated a drug developed by the company for pre-clinical trials. The drug has been developed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and is designed to treat patients with COVID-19.

The preclinical stage is an important part of drug development and is the stage just before human trials. The drug developed by Insilico is aimed at treating patients suffering from COVID-19 by preventing the coronavirus from replicating in the body.

Developed with the help of AI

The company has developed the drug with the help of artificial intelligence. The company has built a machine learning-based software platform made up of three components.

The three components include PandaOmics, Chemistry42 and Inclinico. PandaOmics uses natural-language-processing tools that analyze data from academic papers to highlight genes and proteins related to specific diseases.

Chemistry42 uses this information to generate molecule structures that affect or interact with those highlighted proteins and genes. Inclinico then predicts how the molecule will perform in clinical trials.

How does the drug work?

Unlike present mRNA vaccines that boost the body’s immunity by generating antibodies, the drug developed by Insilico targets the 3C-like protease, an enzyme involved in the viral reproduction of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

"This molecule designed by AI has distinct pharmacophores from existing 3CL protease inhibitors and binds to the target protein in a unique, irreversible, covalent binding mode as demonstrated by a co-crystal structure," said Feng Ren, chief scientific officer of Insilico Medicine.

"We are committed to progress the molecule as fast as possible into clinical trials evaluating its usage in COVID-19 treatment,” Ren added.

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