Insilico Medicine announces the first deployment of its flagship generative chemistry AI platform for de novo molecular design, Chemistry42™ on Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany’s high-performance computing infrastructure

HONG KONG, Nov. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Following the release of Chemistry42 to a select group of key experts in the pharmaceutical industry in Q3 2020, Insilico Medicine is proud to announce that Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany will be the first launch partner for its flagship generative chemistry artificial intelligence (AI) platform – Chemistry42. Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany will integrate Chemistry42™ into their discovery pipeline to facilitate rapid and effective drug design. Chemistry42 v1.0 will be customized and deployed on state-of-the-art high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

Since the publication of Ian Goodfellow’s original paper on generative adversarial networks (GANs) in 2014, Insilico Medicine has been developing generative chemistry and generative biology algorithms. In 2016, Insilico Medicine published the first peer-reviewed publication describing the application of GANs to small molecule discovery in oncology. Between 2016 and 2020 Insilico Medicine authored over 40 papers and has been granted several patents in this field. Insilico Medicine has conducted several proof of concept validation experiments that demonstrate that generative models can successfully identify novel targets, and design molecules with desired properties that can be synthesized and tested in vitro and in vivo. 

Chemistry42™ is a core part of Insilico’s Pharma.ai drug discovery suite. It is a flexible, user-friendly software platform that bridges artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning methods with domain expertise in the fields of medicinal and computational chemistry, for the design of novel small molecules with desirable physicochemical properties. The platform is a scalable distributed web application, capable of running multiple tasks in parallel in a matter of hours. Container orchestration and workflow management allow for predictable hardware-agnostic resource allocation, and for the implementation on either cloud or local HPC infrastructures.

"We are very happy to have Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany sign on as our very first launch partner as they have substantial experience in the field of AI-powered drug discovery internally and built a world-class computing infrastructure," said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, founder, and CEO, Insilico Medicine.

"Chemistry42 v1.0 is the result of years of comprehensive research in generative chemistry, close collaboration between computational and medicinal chemistry scientists, and best high-performance computing engineering practices. We are excited to work closely with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and look forward to demonstrating the impact of our collaboration on their drug discovery programs," said Alex Zhebrak, PhD, CTO of Insilico Medicine.

"We’re excited to continue to deploy the latest tools in AI," said Joern-Peter Halle, Global Head of Research for the Healthcare business sector of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. "AI has the potential to transform the drug discovery process and Insilico Medicine is at the forefront of exciting AI techniques, such as this generative chemistry AI platform."

About Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science and performance materials. Around 57,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people’s lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2019, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, generated sales of € 16.2 billion in 66 countries.

The company holds the global rights to the name and trademark "Merck" internationally. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma in life science, and EMD Performance Materials. Since its founding in 1668, scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to the company’s technological and scientific advances. To this day, the founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company.

About Insilico Medicine

Insilico Medicine develops software that leverages generative models, reinforcement learning (RL), and other modern machine learning techniques for the generation of new molecular structures with specific properties. Insilico Medicine also develops software for the generation of synthetic biological data, target identification, and the prediction of clinical trials outcomes. The company integrates two business models; providing AI-powered drug discovery services and software through its Pharma.AI platform (www.insilico.com/platform/) and developing its own pipeline of preclinical programs. The preclinical program is the result of pursuing novel drug targets and novel molecules discovered through its platforms. Since its inception in 2014, Insilico Medicine has raised over $52 million and received multiple industry awards. Insilico Medicine has also published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and has applied for over 25 patents.

Website http://insilico.com/

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