Manas AI Inc., an AI-powered startup dedicated to transforming drug discovery, has launched with a successful $24.6 million seed funding round. General Catalyst led the round, which was joined by other contributors that included tech luminary Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, and Greylock Partners, where Hoffman served as a general partner until 2023.
The company, co-founded by Hoffman and Siddhartha Mukherjee – an acclaimed cancer researcher and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, seeks to streamline drug development using artificial intelligence. The company will first focus on cancer treatments but will extend its scope into autoimmune diseases and rare conditions, holding hope for areas of medical research that have gone untapped.
Transforming Drug Discovery with AI:
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn
Picture Courtesy: n24.com
The drug development process traditionally relies on the understanding of how small molecules interact with proteins causing diseases. Small molecules are organic compounds with sizes of approximately one nanometer in diameter. For their destructive effects to be neutralized, they need to bind to the targeted proteins. This calls for a simulation technique known as “docking,” which predicts how molecules attach to proteins.
However, this is a pretty complicated and costly process. The molecules and the proteins are rather flexible, making changes in the configurations during their binding. So, there is an exponential amount of all the possible ways the molecules interact, most of them being unsuccessful when performed in experiments. Manas AI’s proprietary AI models aim to solve these challenges by accelerating docking simulations up to 100 times faster than traditional methods.
Project Cosmos is a discovery project aimed at the fundamental rules of molecule-protein binding. These rules will allow Manas AI to predict the process of drug discovery and reduce costs. Pharmaceutical research should be streamlined so that medicines saving lives are produced faster than ever.
Building a Full-Stack Therapeutic Pipeline:
Manas AI envisions a comprehensive “full-stack therapeutic development pipeline” that integrates every stage of drug development, from identifying candidates to conducting clinical trials. The entire process is aimed at cutting down the time and cost required to bring new treatments to patients.
The company has been working with Microsoft Corp. so far, engaging the Azure cloud platform for advanced AI research. Using Azure’s powerful computing capabilities will also support Manas AI in streamlining its models and scaling its operation.
Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, co-founder of Manas AI
Picture Courtesy: www.morningstar.com
Siddhartha Mukherjee emphasized the company’s mission, stating:
“Through the power of AI and our world-class team, we believe we can drastically reduce the time and cost it takes to bring game-changing new treatments to patients.”
The seed funding will primarily focus on advancing AI models, identifying viable drug candidates, and executing clinical trials. Manas AI’s AI-driven approach has the potential to revolutionize pharmaceutical innovation by cutting development times and enabling treatments that were previously deemed too complex or costly.
By combining cutting-edge AI technology with medical expertise, Manas AI is poised to redefine the landscape of drug discovery, opening new frontiers in medical research and therapeutic development.
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