Biotech Startup Insilico Medicines Develops Fully AI-Generated Drug Set for Human Clinical Trials

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Today’s Highlights:

• 👨‍💼Youngest Billionaire CEO Austin Russell Shares Journey to Success💸

• 🔬Biotech Startup Insilico Medicines Develops Fully AI-Generated Drug Set for Human Clinical Trials🏥

Youngest Billionaire CEO Austin Russell on Achieving Success with Extreme Measures

In the day and age where people say money isn’t everything, but almost everything requires money, wouldn’t it be nice to have just enough money so you could not only survive your day-to-day but also splurge every once in a while?

Luminar Technologies Inc. CEO Austin Russell seems to believe he has it all figured out when it comes to success, and here’s what he has to say.

Doing What It Takes

Russell began his journey of becoming an entrepreneur when he dropped out of Stanford University after receiving a $100,000 Peter Thiel Fellowship grant in 2021. This gave Russell the chance to build and grow his company, Luminar Technologies, full-time.

When asked whether he would’ve dropped out of college even if he didn’t receive the grant, he believes that it would’ve happened eventually and that college is a traditional approach not fit for everyone.

Russell maintains the belief that the same resources you could only receive in university 50 years ago are now easily accessible via electronic devices. With everything now available at our fingertips, Russell trusts that dropping out, although perceived extreme to some, could be a great option for student entrepreneurs who are sure that they have the drive to push forward and go all out.

Energy and Passion

Receiving a $100,000 grant is certainly not something that can happen to anyone, and so it is indisputable that Russell has come from a place of at least a small amount of privilege.

Despite this great opportunity, Russell has asserted that he wouldn’t have achieved his success without the two traits that he finds common among younger generations, which are energy and passion.

Russell shared a story of his teenage years when he had dreamt of creating a laser system that would allow cars to be able to drive themselves. He believes that his dream as a teen is what gave him the passion that led him to his life today.

Russell has put the energy he possesses, the kind he trusts people in their 20s have as well, into his passion, and he believes that this is the right way to achieve success.

Through Austin Rusell’s journey, it is undeniable that privilege often plays a part in success. However, it is fallacious to think that putting the amount of energy we have into the things we’re passionate about in life cannot help bring us to where we want to be.

Biotech Startup Insilico Medicine Enters Human Clinical Trials for AI-Generated Drug

Wouldn’t it be magical if we lived in a world where cancer could be treated and cured with a snap of a finger? Although not possible at the moment, applying generative AI in medicine might make this a prospective condition in the future.

Generative AI has slowly created a big impact on the medical industry, from health management wearables and data analysis providing quick diagnoses and treatment options to significant advances in drug discoveries and developments.

Plenty of biopharmaceutical companies, including Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine, have made use of generative AI to create pioneering drugs that had previously never been developed or do exist but are suspected to not perform as efficiently.

With $400 million in funding, Insilico Medicine is designing a drug fully generated by AI to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a lung-scarring chronic disease that currently affects 100,000 people in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health.

Human Clinical Trials

Insilico Medicine first started developing the drug they call INS018_055 in 2020, as it was aware that the current treatment available for IPF is only designed to slow its progression and comes with disagreeable side effects. On the contrary, Insilico’s INS018_055 is developed to treat IPF altogether.

Insilico has begun its first phase of human clinical trials, making this IPF drug the very first fully generative AI drug that is to be tested with human patients. To fully embrace and validate the use of AI, Insilico plans to not only design a revolutionary drug but to also prove that its technology works, decreasing IPF’s prevalence in the future.

Trial Phases

Insilico’s randomized and placebo-controlled trial is currently taking place over 12 weeks in China. When completed, Insilico aims to expand its testing grounds by involving 60 subjects at 40 sites in China and in the U.S., with hopes that it can end with success by next year.

The trials’ success will potentially bring about a third phase, which would involve hundreds of participants, further pushing the possibility of this IPF drug reaching thousands of patients who may benefit from it.

What Comes Next?

Insilico has stated that it would be quite difficult to predict when this drug’s trials can be completed, as the disease is relatively rare, and patients must fulfill certain criteria to become eligible for the trial. However, Insilico has expressed confidence in the fact that this drug will be ready for the market in the next few years.

While the IPF treatment has become Insilico’s main focus, the company is also conducting FDA-approved trials for two other drugs that are partially generated by AI, one for treating COVID-19 and the other a USP1* inhibitor designed to treat solid tumors.

If all goes well for Insilico Medicine, generative AI’s great impact on the medical industry will be proven to be true and possibly bring about previously unseen advancements.

*USP1: Ubiquitin-specific protease 1, a large group of proteases cleaving ubiquitin from proteins involved in DNA damage repair.

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