Insilico Medicine, a company based on generative AI gets the drug against covid-19 approved
Insilico Medicine, a biotechnology company in clinical development based on generative AI, announces that the China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has approved the investigational new drug, an orally available inhibitor of 3CLpro (a viral enzyme), for the treatment of COVID-19. The drug was created and designed with the support of Insilico Chemistry42a software platform for the ex novo design of small molecules that integrates artificial intelligence (AI) techniques with computational and medicinal chemistry methods.
What is this new drug capable of?
The new drug, SM3312, binds to the target protein in a unique, irreversible, binding manner that has the potential to provide a broad spectrum of anti-coronavirus activity and drug-resistant mutations. In preclinical studies, ISM3312 significantly reduces viral load in lung tissue and decreases its inflammation. It has also demonstrated broad-spectrum anti-coronavirus activity, not only for SARS-CoV-2 and its most prevalent variants, but also for other types of coronaviruses. Nonclinical pharmacokinetic studies demonstrate that ISM3312 has promising absorbability, permeability, and oral bioavailability. Compared to existing 3CLpro inhibitors (e.g., Nirmatrelvir and Ensitrelvir), it maintains favorable efficacy at low doses, and the expected clinical efficacy is independent of co-administration with CYP3A and P-gp inhibitors (e.g., Ritonavir), which should further reduce the drug-drug interaction (DDI) problem and side effects. Furthermore, ISM3312 has the potential to overcome clinical resistance, which could provide a solution to the problem of resistant strains caused by the widespread use of drugs with the same method of action in current clinical treatment.
Efficient and easy to produce
As a small-molecule drug generated and engineered by a generative chemistry AI platform, ISM3312 can be efficiently prepared from simple commercially available starting materials, which can be suitable for chemical production and control while ensuring accessibility worldwide. Insilico will soon initiate clinical trials of ISM3312 in China to explore the drug’s tolerability, safety and pharmacokinetic profile in humans, as well as its efficacy and safety in different subgroups of COVID-19 patients, thus providing an alternative option for health management in the post-pandemic era.
