AllianThera Biopharma comes out of stealth and collaborates on AI with Insilico Medicine

AllianThera Biopharma led by ex-pharma veterans, Dr. Yuan-Hua Ding and Dr. Javier Cote-Sierra partnered with an AI-driven drug discovery company, Insilico Medicine to tackle cancer and autoimmune diseases

SUZHOU, China, March 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, AllianThera Biopharma (ATB), a Suzhou, China-based startup focusing on inventing and developing innovative medicines for a broad range of diseases, and Insilico Medicine, a global leader in deep learning for drug discovery and development, announced a collaboration to discover and develop molecules for novel targets in cancer and autoimmune diseases.

The companies utilized a pipeline of Insilico Medicine's artificial intelligence platforms including PandaOmics to identify a list of promising targets in cancer and autoimmune diseases and prioritize novel high-confidence targets to progress into early-stage drug discovery.

ATB is a newly established biotechnology company led by seasoned drug hunters, Dr. Yuan-Hua Ding (CEO) and Dr. Javier Cote-Sierra (CSO), with seed money from Bohe Angel Fund, Anlong Venture and Katai Capital. Dr. Ding and Dr. Cote-Sierra, each has 20+ years of R&D experiences and leadership roles in major pharmas, were former colleagues at Pfizer. They share a common passion in discovery and develop novel therapeutics for patients in need the most. In the recent past, Dr. Ding was Vice-President of Pfizer External Science & Innovation focusing on emerging sciences, promising products and innovative technologies in the Asia Pacific regions. In this role, Dr. Ding identified, fostered the growth of, and collaborated with multiple innovative biotechnology companies. Dr. Cote-Sierra, an immunologist with strong drug discovery and early clinical development expertise acquired through his years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals (Takeda now), Roche and GSK, was recently the Head of Inflammation and Immunology External Innovation at Sanofi Partnering where he and his team contributed to multi-program collaborations and acquisitions.

Dr. Ding and Dr. Cote-Sierra together with Prof. Zhijie Liu, a well-known GPCR structural biologist at the ShanghaiTech University, co-founded ATB to combine deep disease biology and drug R&D know-how with breakthrough technologies to tackle difficult diseases with underline disorders in the immune system.

"Most of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies these days are working more or less on similar well-known targets and the innovation is in new molecular structures. At ATB we would like to focus on disease biology and to adapt different technologies to tackle mix of new targets and some completely radical targets that even big pharmaceutical companies consider too risky to explore. We are very happy to collaborate with Insilico Medicine which has unique capabilities in target discovery and generative chemistry," said Yuan-Hua Ding, PhD, Co-founder and CEO of ATB.

"Dr. Ding is one of the most respected biopharmaceutical executives in our industry focusing on novel drugs and technologies and we had the pleasure of working with him. We are very happy that he decided to form a company focused on leading-edge technologies with transformative potential, assembled a great team of seasoned drug hunters and chose to collaborate with us, on both target discovery and generative chemistry," said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, CEO of Insilico Medicine.

About ATB (AllianThera Biopharma):

Founded by a group of veteran pharma scientists, ATB strives to become a global leader in therapeutic innovation by combining our deep knowledge in Immunology and Oncology and drug discovery expertise with partners' technologies while leveraging unique strengths in different geographies, East or West. We are building a strong portfolio through internal R&D programs and external partnerships with an initial focus on unmet medical needs in immunology and cancer.

ATB is funded by Anlong Venture, Bohe Angel Fund and Katai Capital.

About Insilico Medicine:

Since 2014 Insilico Medicine is focusing on generative models, reinforcement learning (RL), and other modern machine learning techniques for the generation of new molecular structures with the specified parameters, generation of synthetic biological data, target identification, and prediction of clinical trials outcomes. Recently, Insilico Medicine secured $37 million in series B funding. Since its inception, Insilico Medicine raised over $52 million, published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, applied for over 25 patents, and received multiple industry awards. Website http://insilico.com/

Contact:

Polly Firsanova

(240) 641-6266

ai@insilicomedicine.com

Physicians and scientists join forces to develop the longevity medicine curriculum

 

Physicians and scientists highlight the importance of longevity medicine education and collaborate on the first longevity medicine course for physicians

16th of March, Tuesday, 2021 -- Longevity medicine is a rapidly evolving branch of preventative precision medicine that is specifically focused on promoting healthspan and lifespan, utilizing aging biomarkers commonly referred to as aging clocks. Over the past decade advances in AI and machine learning enabled the development of deep aging clocks (DACs) and other novel tools to track the rate of aging. In parallel novel preventative and therapeutic interventions have been discovered or progressed into clinical trials. Many medical and public health professionals do not have time to read the thousands of research papers covering this new field and actively engage in cutting-edge innovation in preventative medicine. And there are few educational resources that outline the benefits of longevity medicine. However, in order for the field to evolve, it is important that these materials are easily accessible for the broad medical community and presented at the level acceptable by the general medical practitioners.

In the comment titled "Longevity medicine: upskilling the physicians of tomorrow" (Lancet Healthy Longevity, 2021) Evelyne Bischof, MD, Morten Scheibye-Knudsen, MD, PhD, Richard Siow, PhD, Alexey Moskalev, PhD, summarise current findings on the main types of deep aging clocks, longevity medicine and reflect on the necessary education in this field.

Multiple institutions providing medical education are now actively seeking collaborations with artificial intelligence experts to create educational content that will help medical professionals acquire new skills in artificial intelligence for healthcare. However, it was not until 2020 when the first educational curriculum in longevity medicine for physicians was created by the team of scientists and clinicians, led by the artificial intelligence and longevity scientist and entrepreneur, Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD.

In connection with the article calling for more educational resources scientists launched the first longevity medicine course for physicians.

The course provided the physicians and other medical professionals with the introduction to the theoretical and practical basics of longevity medicine, which includes molecular mechanisms, theories of aging, biomarkers of aging, and geroprotector regimens. This course, as well as similar courses, provide medical and public health professionals with the baseline knowledge required to understand aging research, knowledge about longevity therapies available related to senescence-related processes, and the skills to examine biomarkers of aging and other age testing mechanisms. The course discusses advances in research in drug design, machine learning, omics, differential diagnosis, biogerontology, geroprotective interventions and healthcare organisations while also educating medical clinicians on how to implement them on a daily basis.

Physicians and medical professionals can register for this course at Udemy at no charge during the promotional periods, take the course at their own pace at any time, and receive a certificate of completion. The next promotion will transpire from 16th to 24th March 2021 on Udemy Platform (coupon codes: LONGEVITYMEDICINE, FREELONGEVITY2021) and students registering for this course will be able to start the course at any time and receive a certificate of completion.

The authors also agreed to collaborate on a course to be available free of charge to physicians and the general public at https://www.longevity.degree/

"Longevity physicians are looking for ways to reduce the gap between the current parameters, such as the current biological age, and the parameters of optimal maximum physical performance, such as the ideal biological age, predicted by deep learning. It is essential that practicing doctors have access to the appropriate longevity medicine education through a credible curriculum", said Evelyne Bischof, MD.

"The emergence of reliable markers for human aging now allows us to understand what interventions reduce the rate of aging. We are on the cusp of a new era in medicine where age-associated diseases and perhaps aging itself can be slowed or even halted. Education about interventions leading to healthy aging is paramount for allowing everyone a healthier and longer life", said Morten Scheibye-Knudsen, MD, PhD.

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The article is available as open access in Lancet Healthy Longevity:

Lancet Healthy Longev 2021 Published Online March 25, 2021

https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-7568(21)00024-6