After several years of stealth development, SandboxAQ has announced its bio-pharma molecular simulation division, AQBioSim, and some of its customers.
The division is helping bio-pharma and research institutions achieve breakthroughs in treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other conditions. The company is currently working with biopharma companies and university research labs, including AstraZeneca, Sanofi and UC San Francisco.
Paul Hudson, CEO of Sanofi said: “We are very interested in the work SandboxAQ is doing to revolutionize drug discovery and development via in-silico simulation of molecular interactions using AI and quantum technologies. SandboxAQ’s leapfrog technology could significantly impact both preclinical and clinical development of drugs, and we look forward to seeing how it could support us in delivering life-changing treatments to patients worldwide, faster.”
SandboxAQ ‘Revolutionizing’ drug discovery
“SandboxAQ is at the forefront of combining AI and quantum techniques to address large, enterprise challenges. SandboxAQ’s technology is revolutionizing the drug discovery and development process,” said Eric Schmidt, chairman of the board of SandboxAQ.
“Through collaboration with AstraZeneca, Sanofi, UCSF and others, SandboxAQ is reducing the time and cost of bringing life-saving treatments to the clinic. This is just the beginning of the applications of AQ technology across our economy.”
SandboxAQ said it improves upon existing methods by delivering faster time-to-solution, while retaining accuracy. Initial customer milestones show that these technologies can decrease the time and cost of developing new therapies, and de-risk drug portfolios before entering preclinical and clinical stages.
“Our AQ-powered solutions accelerate the drug discovery and development process, mitigating its slow, complex, and error-prone nature,” said Nadia Harhen, leader of the AQBioSim division.
“By shortening the discovery funnel, de-risking portfolios, and uncovering winning formulas earlier, we empower bio-pharma companies and research institutions to prioritize promising compounds, accelerate therapy development, extend patent lifetimes, drive revenue growth, and get cures to patients faster.”
The technologies were leveraged through a collaboration with UCSF’s Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases in an effort to apply AI-powered simulation to rapidly identify potential therapies for neurodegenerative disorders. As part of the development, the researchers used SandboxAQ’s Absolute Free Energy Perturbation (AQ-FEP) software to generate thousands of predictions of molecular interactions, leading to some exciting new compounds.
“Neurodegenerative diseases are enormously complex and defy standard drug design,” said Stanley B. Prusiner, who leads the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases.
“We need rational and structure-based design methods that can address the challenging diseases we face. Given the devastating nature of these diseases and the lack of effective therapies to treat them, techniques that accelerate new leads and reduce our discovery timelines are greatly needed.”
“We are excited about our partnership with SandboxAQ where we are accelerating drug candidate identification and optimization on novel targets within the Riboscience portfolio,” said Klaus Klumpp, co-founder and president of Riboscience.
“SandboxAQ’s unprecedented large-scale absolute free energy perturbation solution is transforming our virtual screening campaign execution and allowing us to profile in-silico more than 20,000 ligands per day.”
“SandboxAQ’s AI-powered quantum technologies continue to revolutionize and disrupt industries, but few will experience such a transformative impact as bio-pharma and life sciences,” said Kristin Gilkes, EY Global Quantum Leader.
“The company unabashedly seeks out the toughest challenges and applies technology and expertise to deliver impactful solutions – in this case, significantly advancing R&D for undruggable illnesses like cancer and Alzheimer’s that have confounded the industry for decades. EY is excited to be collaborating with SandboxAQ in its mission to reimagine drug discovery and development.”