One major reason why new drugs are so expensive is because so many pharmaceutical research projects fail along the way.
Tel Aviv-based Immunai aims to optimize the process by using AI—and 10,000 times more data than traditional techniques—to understand the human immune system, thereby leading to more targeted therapies with higher odds of success.
According to founder Noam Solomon “At the most basic and simple level, if in the past drug development was done by trial and error - what you could describe as stumbling in the dark without a flashlight or without a map. So we developed a GPS that helps this process happen in a manner that is data driven. Of course, it’s not as simple as entering your final destination and jumping into your car, there is still a lot of uncertainty and errors – but it’s possible to add intelligent data-based ‘directions’ and this improves the process of developing the drug.”
Immunai has been building a massive data set of immunological information in order to fuel their findings and their research. It combines genetic information, along with other data like epigenetic changes or proteomics (the study of proteins), to map out how the immune system functions. Then machine learning is applied to identify what targets might be useful for drug-makers, what drugs might cause toxic reactions, and ultimately predict how a patient might respond to a potential treatment.
Growing at an insane rate ($215m of funding in 4 years) Immunai is a company looking like it will change the pharmaceutical world and for the better.
