AION Labs Launches New AI Startup to Accelerate Identification of Active Small Molecules for Drug Discovery

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Oct 29, 2024, 08:30 ET

ProPhet, Newest Startup Launched by Israel-Based Venture Studio, Aims to Reduce Time and Cost of Finding Molecules for New Drug Targets

REHOVOT, Israel, Oct. 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- AION Labs, the first-of-its-kind venture studio spearheading the adoption of AI technologies and computational science to solve therapeutic challenges, announced today the launch of ProPhet, a new startup leveraging artificial intelligence to identify active small molecules for drug discovery.

ProPhet was formed following AION Labs' startup challenge focused on AI-powered drug discovery of new high-affinity small molecules. It aims to address the critical market need to accelerate, refine, and enhance the early stages of drug discovery by targeting proteins that are challenging due to limited information, while significantly reducing the time and cost of identifying potential drug candidates for these targets.

Determining the structure of target proteins, a critical first step in drug development, has traditionally required exhaustive processes in wet labs, such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and crystallography. While the advent of AI has provided several methods to predict the structure of proteins from their sequence, it has not revolutionized the world of drug discovery as anticipated.

"Proteins are influenced by their surroundings, which can cause them to adopt various possible conformational states. Our platform enables us to both evaluate these different states and screen vast small molecule libraries against them in a highly scalable manner," said Tom Shani, PhD, CEO of ProPhet. "AION Labs has provided the perfect environment for our company to grow, with the opportunity to partner with the strongest players in the pharmaceutical industry to optimize our design process. This ensures we are well-aligned with the industry's priorities and needs."

ProPhet addresses the biological and computational challenges by using state of the art machine learning technologies, including diffusion models and large language models to develop optimized novel algorithms.

Along with Dr. Shani, ProPhet's founding team includes CTO Amitai Mordechai, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer Avital Sharir-Ivry, PhD, and JJ Ben-Joseph as Chief AI Officer.

"Small molecules constitute the majority of developed drugs, making ProPhet's approach particularly vital through its broad applicability across a wide range of treatments," said Mati Gill, CEO of AION Labs. "Dr. Shani has formed the ideal team for this space, possessing the perfect combination of biological, chemistry and computational expertise. We are excited to support ProPhet with the necessary resources and connections to succeed."

About AION Labs

AION Labs is a first-of-its-kind venture studio comprising AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer, Teva, the Israel Biotech Fund, Amiti Ventures, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), powered by BioMed X with the support of the Israeli Government via the Israel Innovation Authority, that have come together with one clear mission: to create and adopt groundbreaking new AI technologies that will transform the process of drug discovery and development in order to contribute to the health and well-being of all people world-wide.

AION Labs is a unique venture hub where brilliant innovators and scientist-founders convene from around the world to solve the biggest R&D challenges guided by years of accumulated know-how, data and experience in pharma. The lab leverages its partners' wealth of knowledge and a new multidisciplinary mindset with the ingenuity, agility and innovative power of Israel's start-up ecosystem, to develop strong companies with clear long-term strategies, that will pave the way to the future of healthcare. AION Labs cultivates innovation from within; its unique venture creation process bridges the gap between outstanding academic research in the field of AI and the biggest R&D needs in the discovery and development of new medicines for the benefit of patients.

For more information, visit aionlabs.com.
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SOURCE AION Labs