Semi-automated contracting system to accelerate partnering in AI-powered drug discovery
One of the main impediments in partnerships between the AI companies and biotechnology companies is contracting. Legal contracts for target identification and small molecule generation can be incredibly complex, especially when the parties do not have experience in partnering on AI-powered projects. In 2018-2019 Insilico Medicine partnered with nearly a dozen biotechnology companies with varying needs and developed a portfolio of use cases. It often took longer to negotiate a contract than to perform the project and deliver the working molecules to the partner.
A project to develop a new and flexible partnering process for pharmaceutical companies and AI drug discovery platforms has the potential to dramatically speed up the time it currently takes for new drugs to reach the market and enable delivery of better medicines to patients.
Insilico Medicine, one of the leaders in AI-powered drug discovery retained Hill Dickinson in 2018 and 2019 to standardise documentation for the small and medium biotechnology companies as well as "Big pharma" and simplify the often-complex partnership process; and in doing so, help accelerate the drug discovery process.
The new standardised documentation will be integrated into the automated partnering system that is already in use by Insilico and will be refined and developed using machine learning.
Hill Dickinson commercial partner Michael Corcoran, who led on the project, said: "We were delighted to work with Insilico to develop a standardised partnership agreement of this type. Hill Dickinson's life science, health tech and commercial teams have a wealth of specialist expertise that combine to give us a deep understanding right across the market in which Insilico operates, specifically the bridge between established pharma companies and biotech and AI."
Alex Zhavoronkov, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, said: "We believe our collaboration with Hill Dickinson is an industry first: the first time in AI for drug discovery that someone has developed a flexible partnering agreement that accurately reflects the multiple partnering options and provides the ability to structure the agreement in semi-automatic manner. We look forward to further collaboration on related projects."
