For the first time ever, a COVID-19 drug entirely designed by generative AI has been approved for human use and will soon begin clinical trials in China, the Canadian-founded company announced Thursday.
COVID-19 drug entirely designed by generative AI
“I just don’t think it’s possible to make a better one, period,” said Alex Zhavoronkov, the Canadian founder and co-CEO of Insilico Medicine, told the Star. “The molecule is so stable... it is an absolutely novel molecule not found in any of the libraries” of known therapeutics. Unlike similar therapeutics, however, Zhavoronkov said his drug works on a very broad spectrum — showing efficacy not only against all current COVID variants, but also coronaviruses other than SARS-CoV-2. As such, it may possess the ability to resist future mutations, providing a solution to drug-resistant strains, he continued.
In contrast, traditional drug discovery pipelines can take years or even decades to find one suitable therapeutic. “Unfortunately, at that time, you probably remember everybody was running around with their heads on fire, right?” Zhavoronkov said. Insilico, still a relatively small company at the time, had difficulty finding a partner interested in their product.
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