Partnership sees AI platform expanded into drug repurposing and discovery.
Canadian AI technology firm NetraMark yesterday announced the extension of its NetraPharma collaboration agreement with Longevity focused life sciences company Juvenescence. NetraPharma is described as a clinical-development focused machine learning initiative and is a 50/50 partnership between the companies.
The companies originally teamed up to use the AI platform for drug resurrection – extracting hidden information from failed or failing clinical trials – but have now expanded the scope of work to include drug repurposing and drug discovery. This announcement highlights a move from psychiatric indications to more focus on Longevity.
Drug repurposing, or indication expansion, is becoming a significant area of research and development, with existing products like aspirin, Metformin and Rapamycin all showing potential as therapies for Longevity related conditions.
Dr Greg Bailey, CEO of Juvenescence, said, “We see this as a novel collaboration to combine NetraMark’s diverse and unique machine learning platform with Juvenescence, as we are positioned as one of the leading drug development companies in the rapidly expanding sector focused on developing therapies to modify aging.”
NetraPharma uses a novel mathematical technique to integrate the outputs of multiple different machine learning algorithms, including gradient boosting, random forests, neural networks, GANs, quantum computation, and others. It enables the segmentation of subgroups within datasets when only a limited number of inputs are available. The system is claimed to be particularly adept at identifying placebo responders and non-responders, and with patient reported outcome measures (PROMs).
Dr Joseph Geraci, CEO of Toronto-based NetraMark, said, “After years of development and validation by the NetraMark tech team, the NetraAI machine learning suite is providing us with valuable insights into aging. The result is a very exciting collaboration with Juvenescence, one of the premier biotech companies focusing on modifying aging.”
