The potential of Intellegens’ Alchemite™ artificial intelligence (AI) technology has been demonstrated with the recent announcement of a commercial collaboration between the Cambridge-based company and e-Therapeutics; the Oxford-based pioneer of Network-Driven Drug Discovery (NDD).
In its first commercial application, Alchemite™ will enable e-Therapeutics to generate improved predictions, correct errors and fill in gaps in the large-scale biological and chemical information respositories housed in the company’s proprietary databases.
Alchemite™ is the result of intensive research by Dr Gareth Conduit, CTO and Intellegens co-founder. Working at the world-famous Cavendish Laboratories in Cambridge, Dr Conduit discovered a new method of analysing sparsely populated matrices using deep neural networks and novel machine learning approaches.
Commenting on the deal with e-Therapeutics, Ben Pellegrini, CEO and Intellegens co-founder, said: “There is an increasing realisation that there is a huge amount of value locked in the massive databases that underpin most commercial organisations. Through Intellegens, these companies now have a way to extract that value, using a proven method that is scalable, objective and meaningful. We believe our technology can help e-Therapeutics in its search for better and more potent drug candidates”
Dr Jonny Wray, Head of Discovery Informatics at e-Therapeutics, added: “We already utilise machine learning heavily in our discovery platform to augment empirical biological and chemical data. Our partnership with Intellegens will enhance and extend our internal capabilities at the cutting edge of AI research and application.”
Intellegens was incorporated as a spin-out from the University of Cambridge in November 2017 and has recently moved into the city’s Eagle Labs technology incubator. In order to further the company’s research, and enhance its delivery capabilities, Dr Tom Whitehouse, also from the Cavendish Laboratory, recently joined the team.
Concluding, Dr Conduit said: “Alchemite™ is the first in a series of application specific AI modules that we are developing at Intellegens. These will be designed to address specific, high value, data analysis bottlenecks that we are uncovering through our discussions with existing and potential customers. With these new modules, we intend to pursue new business opportunities in both the Life Sciences and other sectors”