Exscientia launches AWS AI-powered platform to advance drug discovery

Exscientia announced it will be expanding its work with Amazon Web Services AWS to use the cloud provider’s artificial intelligence AI and machine learning ML services to power its platform for end-to-end drug discovery and automation. Exscientia’s platform uses generative AI models and the scalability and flexibility of AWS to securely, quickly and efficiently design drug candidates that aim to better target specific diseases and patients, with the goal of accelerating early drug development at a lower cost. The industry-standard pace of drug discovery is hampered by conventional high-throughput screening HTS approaches, which involves outsourcing large-scale chemical synthesis and biological testing to contract research organisations. Exscientia deploys generative AI in its DesignStudio to ‘learn’ rather than to ‘screen’ for discoveries in vast chemical space. The company’s UK based AutomationStudio then synthesises and tests drug candidates that were identified by its DesignStudio as having high potential, making extensive use of state-of-the-art robotics to drive efficiency in the molecular synthesis process. Data from the testing completed at the AutomationStudio is then fed back to its DesignStudio to further improve its generative AI algorithms. By impacting both the screening stage and the synthesis and testing stage of drug discovery, Exscientia aims to accelerate the pace of drug development, closing the loop between in silico design and wet-lab synthesis.