Amazon Web Services launched Amazon Bio Discovery, an artificial intelligence application designed to accelerate early-stage drug discovery by allowing scientists to run complex computational workflows without coding, AWS said in a blog post.
Drugmakers and technology companies have stepped up efforts to use AI in drug development, and Rajiv Chopra said the rapid rise of drug-discovery models has turned computational biologists who can translate lab goals into machine-learning pipelines into a bottleneck.
AWS said Amazon Bio Discovery provides a library of specialized biological foundation models that can generate and evaluate potential drug molecules, plus an AI agent to help users select models, set parameters and interpret results. Researchers can send shortlisted candidates to integrated lab partners for synthesis and testing, with results routed back into the system to guide subsequent design. AWS named Bayer, the Broad Institute and Voyager Therapeutics as early adopters, and said 19 of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies already use its cloud services.
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In a collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the platform used multiple models to generate nearly 300,000 novel antibody molecules and narrow them to 100,000 candidates for lab testing by partner Twist Bioscience, compressing work that can take months into weeks. Rajiv Chopra, vice president of healthcare AI and life sciences at AWS, said the service is "intended to augment, not replace, scientists and contract research organizations." Jefferies analyst Tycho Peterson said fears of AI reducing demand for research instruments are largely overblown and that tool spending could rise with faster research returns.
AWS said it will also join Boston Consulting Group and Merck to unveil an AI platform at AWS's Life Science Symposium aimed at improving clinical trial site selection.
The recap
- Amazon launched Amazon Bio Discovery to accelerate drug discovery workflows.
- Platform generated nearly 300,000 antibody molecules and narrowed to 100,000.
- AWS, BCG and Merck will unveil AI trial-site selection platform.
