The first fully AI-generated drug enters clinicaltrials in human patients

• Insilico Medicine, a Hong Kong-based biotech startup with more than $400 million in funding, created the drug as a treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease.
• “It is the first fully generative AI drug to reach human clinical trials, and specifically Phase II trials with patients,” Alex Zhavoronkov, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, told CNBC.
• The discovery process for the new drug began in 2020.

The first drug fully generated by artificial intelligence entered clinical trials with human patients this week.

Insilico Medicine, a Hong Kong-based biotech startup with more than $400 million in funding, created the drug, INS018_055, as a treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic disease that causes scarring in the lungs. The condition, which has increased in prevalence in recent decades, currently affects about 100,000 people in the U.S. and can lead to death within two to five years if untreated, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The discovery process for the new drug began in 2020, with hopes to create a “moonshot” medicine to overcome challenges with current treatments for the condition, which mostly focus on slowing progression and can cause uncomfortable side effects, Zhavoronkov said.

He added that Insilico has chosen to focus on IPF in part because of the condition’s implications in aging, but the company has two other drugs partially generated by AI in the clinical stage. One is a Covid-19 drug in phase one clinical trials, and the other is a cancer drug, specifically a “USP1 inhibitor for the treatment of solid tumors,” that recently received FDA approval to initiate clinical trials.

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