Press Release
Alchemite™ technology from Intellegens has not only been validated on drug discovery applications for some of the world’s biggest pharma companies – it is also integrated into a robust, deployable platform, Cerella™. This result was enabled by the DeepADMET consortium, which has now concluded. This successful collaboration was funded by Innovate UK and involved Intellegens, Optibrium, and the Medicines Discovery Catapult.
CAMBRIDGE, and MACCLESFIELD, UK, 3 December 2020 – DeepADMET, a consortium set up to advance AI technologies for drug discovery, today announced the successful conclusion of a project funded by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. Optibrium – a developer of software for drug discovery, Intellegens – an AI company, and Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) – the UK’s catapult centre for medicine research and innovation, partnered to harness the power of AI for drug discovery research and developed a next-generation software platform supporting the design of new drug candidates. The consortium demonstrated how their software supports drug discovery teams in identifying compounds with improved ‘on target’ properties more efficiently in case studies with pharma and biotech companies.
Utilising Optibrium’s small molecule design, optimisation and data analysis software, StarDrop™, and leveraging Intellegens’ unique Alchemite™ deep learning algorithm, the joint research team custom-tailored their algorithms to the specificities of drug discovery data. The resulting software platform complements current drug discovery processes and improves efficiency and productivity. The project reached its successful conclusion, demonstrating the strength of their prototype’s prediction of drug candidate’s absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity (ADMET) properties on live industry data.
Optibrium continued to develop this prototype into a commercial product, Cerella™, a platform that directly integrates with a customer’s in-house research database to generate models based on the customer’s proprietary data automatically. Models and predictions continue to update as new data becomes available, resulting in increasingly accurate predictions.
Matthew Segall, CEO at Optibrium: “We appreciate the support received from Innovate UK, enabling us to advance the development of our AI platform, Cerella™. As proven by several case studies, Cerella™ fills a critical need in modern drug discovery, with collaborators’ research and development teams eager to exploit its capacity to accelerate their discovery of novel breakthrough treatments. We are grateful for Innovate UK’s initiatives that enable collaborations like ours, and will continue to work with Intellegens and MDC to further the UK’s role in drug discovery.”
Ben Pellegrini, CEO at Intellegens: “This project represents a significant step forward for Intellegens. Through this collaborative project, we have validated the underlying science with some of the biggest pharma companies in the world, and more importantly, wrapped it up in a robust, deployable platform. We look forward to building on this technology and continuing our collaboration with Optibrium.”
John P. Overington, Chief Informatics Officer at Medicines Discovery Catapult: “The power that comes from discovering and preparing the needed data for medicines research cannot be overstated. This project is unequivocal in its demonstration of how quality data can refine, direct and expedite drug discovery, resulting in faster and flexible routes to clinic, while minimising overall project costs.”
“It has been an extremely rewarding venture working with Optibrium and Intellegens during this project; a collaboration which will enable a more streamlined and efficient approach to drug discovery and be able to see future applications in other key business areas.”