A fourth start-up but the first of its kind sees some high-profile companies join forces in a hunt for new global research talent.
AION Labs, an Israel-based alliance of AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer, Teva, Israel Biotech Fund and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are focusing their start-up on the ‘prediction of clinical trial outcome in biomarker-stratified cancer patient populations.’
AION Labs, spearheading the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and computational science to solve therapeutic challenges, and German independent research institute BioMed X, announced today (June 29) the launch of the fourth global call for application to identify biomedical scientists and inventors to form a new startup at AION Labs’ headquarters in Rehovot, Israel.
The chosen team will be sponsored by AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer and Teva Pharmaceuticals, with close support from Amazon Web Services (AWS), and the Israeli Government through the Israel Innovation Authority.
Patient population
This fourth startup will focus on the development of an AI platform that optimizes the patient population for clinical phase 3 studies by identifying biomarkers within existing single arm early phase 1/2 data, and considers the standard of care to maximize the likelihood of success.
AION Labs considers itself a venture hub where innovators and scientist-founders convene from around the world to solve the biggest research and development challenges guided by years of accumulated know-how, data and experience in pharma.
The goal of the AI algorithm will be to identify a predictive biomarker using the input clinical trial data and project a response of the tested drug and standard of care in a patient population with or without the biomarker.
Yair Benita, CTO of AION Labs, said: “We are eager to tackle yet another pharmaceutical R&D challenge. We’re anticipating another strong round of applications, and look forward to working together with the chosen startup to develop a cutting-edge solution to substantially improve the prediction of clinical trial outcomes and benefit cancer patients waiting on the swift approval of new drugs.”
Computational platform
AION Labs is inviting startups, computational biologists, bioinformatics and cheminformatics scientists, AI and machine learning researchers at academic and industry research labs worldwide to propose the development of a next-generation computational platform to predict the outcome of a phase III randomized oncology clinical trial given a single arm early phase I/II data. Original ideas that go far beyond the current state-of-the-art are being encouraged.
As part of the online application procedure, interested candidates are requested to submit a competitive project proposal via the BioMed X Career Space at https://career.bio.mx/call/2022-AIL-C04 before Aug 28, 2022. Further details about this call for application can be found on the AION Labs website: www.aionlabs.com.