Atomwise and Charles River Labs Form Alliance to Provide AI Services

Charles River Laboratories and its clients now have access to Atomwise’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to improve the efficiency of drug discovery.

On January 11th, 2019, Atomwise, Inc. announced a strategic alliance with Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. The joint venture could potentially yield up to $2.4 billion in royalties for Atomwise. Under this agreement, Atomwise will help lead optimization efforts and hit discovery; while receiving technology access fees and royalties from clients.

Artificial intelligence is growing in the healthcare field and the alliance of these two companies will help advance their businesses in the technology and healthcare world. AI makes it possible for machines and technology to adjust to new inputs in order to perform human-like tasks. Companies are able to complete specific tasks with the use of this technology that processes large amounts of data sets in order to predict near-future trends in the healthcare industry.

HealthCare Weekly Insight

In this agreement, Atomwise will work together with Charles River Labs to provide pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with opportunities to identify chemical compounds.

Atomwise uses artificial intelligence for its structure-based drug design technology that will allow scientists to determine how small molecules are able to bind to a target protein to create medicines for various diseases. Created in 2012, Atomwise has raised over $50 million from venture capital firms to help support the development of their technologies.

Charles River chose to collaborate with Atomwise because of their many successful projects and track record for drug delivery. Last year, Charles River expanded their discovery services of technologies and pharmacokinetic services.

As mentioned in the press release by Atomwise CEO Dr. Abraham Heifets, “We’re pleased to partner with Charles River, the leading global discovery and safety CRO”. He added, “Biopharmaceutical companies around the world trust Charles River with moving their discoveries from an idea into the clinic, and Charles River trusts us to enhance that process with our innovative AI technology.”

Efficient Drug Discovery

Through this collaboration, Charles River Labs will have access to the AI technology provided by Atomwise. This will be used to analyze billions of compounds and screen proteins in the drug discovery procedure.

The AI provided by Atomwise will allow Charles River to enhance their approaches to identifying small molecules which will accelerate the goals that Charles River is trying to accomplish in their various clinics.

The use of AI in drug development and healthcare is a fairly new concept and Atomwise has used this technology to greatly enhance the process of screening the for compounds.

Both biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies have the ability to better identify chemically diverse compounds in order to find the right drugs that meet the need for selectivity, toxicity, safety, and patentability. This represents another progressive step for both Charles River and Atomwise to help expand their portfolios.

More About Atomwise Inc

Atomwise, Inc., was founded by Abraham Heifets, Alexander Levy, and Dr. Izhar Wallach in 2012 with headquarters in different regions such as the San Francisco Bay Area, the West Coast,  and other areas of the western US. Atomwise, in the early stage venture of its funding status, develops artificial intelligence systems to provide drug discovery by using deep learning algorithms and supercomputers. The company is changing the way medicines are developed.

The team consists of several software engineers, scientists, and other members in the executive team. They work with leading research groups, including Dana Farber Cancer Institute and several large pharmaceutical companies, with the goal of advancing human health by inventing new potential medicines.

Atomwise’s Technology Algorithm

Atomwise’s technology, known as AtomNet is a deep convolutional neural network for structure-based drug discovery. There are several urgent global health challenges, such as increasing trends of antibiotic resistance viruses which Atomwise is targeting.

The goal of drug research is to create molecules that strongly interact with the targets presented to reduce or enhance their effects (these molecules are known as ligands). AtomNet helps to identify these molecules.

AtomNet is the first drug discovery algorithm to use a specific neural network in order to understand complex concepts revealed from smaller pieces of information. AtomNet is able to learn the proteins that make up a variety of chemical structures and groups, such as hydrogen bonding, single-bonded carbons, and aromaticity.

More About Charles River Laboratories

Charles River Laboratories, Inc., is an American pharmaceutical company that provides clinical laboratory services for medical and biotechnology industries. This company was founded in 1947 and its headquarters is in Wilmington, MA. With over 80 sites around the world, this company applies multidisciplinary perspectives in resolving challenges. Their goal is to advance human health by supporting their clients’ research.

Under this agreement, Atomwise will make its AI technology available for multiple projects. This collaboration will increase efficiency and diversity in the drug discovery process to help reduce the timeline for drug discovery projects by combining two industry-leading drug discovery platforms.