Top 12 Drug Discovery Vendors for Pharma Productivity in 2024

The global artificial intelligence (AI) drug discovery market is projected to grow from $1.5 billion in 2023 to $13 billion in 2032.¹

Drug discovery solutions allow companies to develop innovative medicines in immuno-oncology, neuroscience, and rare diseases with high unmet needs. The research and development of drugs can result in a disruptive change that will impact pharma productivity and innovation to benefit the entire healthcare ecosystem.

This article covers the top 12 drug discovery vendors based on objective metrics: company size and FDA submission score (to see the above figure).

1- Berg Health

Berg Health has 13 partnerships with different institutions such as research centers, hospitals, colleges, and startups. Cancer Research and Biostatistics, Genomics England, and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine are some of its partners.

2- BioXcel Corporation

BioXcel Corporation has a partnership with Alnylam to discover novel RNAi therapeutic products. Also, they have partnerships with Centrexion, Pronutria, and Takeda. Additionally, they are one of the best-funded and largest companies in the space in terms of headcount.

3- Recursion Pharmaceuticals

Recursion Pharmaceuticals is a biotech startup that uses machine learning to create a pipeline and drug development platform. The company aims to produce 100 new treatments by 2025. They raised 60.8M within 3 years indicating strong investor interest.

In 2023 the company generated $47 million in revenue via licensing and official partnerships. Many major biopharma companies are interested in working with Recursion because of its AI platform. The invitation to partners, such as the multinational pharmaceutical company Bayer in Germany, is to perhaps cut back on R&D costs and development times.²

You can also check our list of drug discovery software to find the most suitable option for your business.

4- BenevolentAI

 BenevolentAI focuses on developing AI platforms for new drug targets for any therapeutic field.   BenevolentAI aims to leverage the “vast potential of AI,” prioritize high-potential products to value inflection points, and move forward with a proposed workforce reduction that is projected to reduce £45 million in net costs at least until July 2025.³

BenevolentAI is working on several diseases, including ALS and Alzheimer’s. In addition to developing its therapeutic prospects, the company has several collaborations, including ones with major pharmaceutical firms Novartis and AstraZeneca. Recently, BenevolentAI made headlines when it identified a therapy for Covid-19.

5- Numerate

Numerate is a privately held drug development company that focuses on drug discovery data through the use of proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms. Numerate raised $17.4 million in funding until 2020. The platform developed by Numerate can forecast the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of a prospective medication in the human body for conditions including obesity, heart failure, Alzheimer’s disease, and Huntington’s disease.⁴

Numerate has important collaborations with pharma companies such as Lundbeck, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck & Co., and Takeda Pharmaceutical. The company also has partnerships with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company of Japan to find and provide numerous clinical candidates to the company for its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery platform.

6- Insclico Medicine Inc.

Insilico Medicine aims to cut the time and expense involved in getting life-saving medications to patients by using AI in every stage of pharmaceutical research and development. The business uses  AI systems to link biological, chemical, and clinical study analysis. Its drug discovery package, “Pharma.AI”, includes “InClinico” tools (which design and predict clinical trials), “Chemistry42” tool (which generates innovative substances), and “PandaOmics” tool (which finds and prioritizes endpoints). 

Insilico Medicine’s drug candidate, INS018_055, for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, became the first fully AI-discovered and AI-designed medication to enter a phase 2 clinical trial in 2023. Two further medications that the AI business is developing that were partially created by AI are currently in the trial phases.⁵

It is also important to note that Insilico and Sanofi signed a partnership agreement in November 2022 that may potentially be worth $1.2 billion. Sanofi would use Insilico’s pharmaceuticals, according to the deal.⁶

7- Atomwise

Atomwise aims to transform small molecule medication discovery using artificial intelligence. 

With Atomwise’s method, deep learning for structure-based medication design is integrated into the company’s platform, which allows AI-powered searches of more than 3 trillion synthesizable molecules.

One of Atomwise’s largest contracts was a strategic multi-target research relationship with pharmaceutical behemoth Sanofi. Through this partnership, Atomwise will use Sanofi’s AtomNet platform to uncover and investigate up to five therapeutic targets computationally. 

In 2023 Atomwise announced its first AI-driven development, an allosteric TYK2 inhibitor that is orally bioavailable. The development may be able to treat a variety of autoimmune and autoinflammatory conditions by modifying the particular enzyme pathways.⁷

8- twoXAR

Founded in 2014 twoXAR raised $14.3 million of total funds until 2020. The company’s key parents include Ono Pharmaceutical and SK Pharmaceuticals Biopharmaceuticals.⁸

TwoXAR searches of freely accessible libraries are used as a strategy to identify drugs that have the highest potential effectiveness for a certain illness. To identify novel biological targets, the business has mostly concentrated on rheumatoid arthritis and breast cancer, looking at patient gene expression data and electronic health records. 

TwoXAR appears to be concentrating on that foreign market, where its US-based competitors may not be searching, with agreements mostly with Asian enterprises.

9- Verge Genomics

Founded in 2015 Verge Genomics raised $36.1 million in funds until 2020.

The company’s important partners include Datavant, Johns Hopkins University, Scripps Research, and Genomics England.⁹

Verge Genomics uses a map of the genes responsible for an illness to identify possible medication options that can simultaneously target every gene involved. First, using samples of brain tissue from people who passed away from Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the business created its own unique genetic data sets. 

Verge Genomics, which Alice Zhang cofounded, has developed a database on neurodegenerative diseases through partnerships with several hospitals and academic institutions. More recently, it has begun using its algorithms to create clinical trial designs with partner Datavant and submitting them to pharmaceutical datasets.

10-NuMedii

NuMedii is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and was started in 2008. The company creates drugs that alter many disease-related networks and can assist in a variety of drug discovery tasks, such as determining patient subgroups, novel treatment approaches, and biomarkers. 

11- Cloud Pharmaceuticals

Cloud Pharmaceuticals, Inc. focused on artificial intelligence-driven medicine research and development. The company has partners such as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) on drug discovery, focusing on research to create unique small-molecule medicines using their AI-driven methods.

12- Globavir Biosciences

Specializing in biotechnology, Globavir works on a strategy for maximizing the benefits of the 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway. To produce small molecule candidates for cancer and infectious disorders, Globavir uses its predictive, machine-learning GDDP platform, which was first created at Stanford University. 

In the first part of 2016, the company’s primary product, GBV006, which is investigating several infectious disorders, entered a Phase 1b/2a clinical study. 

Globavir has worldwide licenses to create and market a blood-based test for diagnosis technology from Stanford University. 

External links

External Links

• 1. ”Projected global artificial intelligence (AI) in drug discovery market from 2023 to 2032”. Statista. December 15, 2023. Retrieved January 17, 2024.
• 2. ”3 Biotech Stocks You Can Buy and Hold for the Next Decade”. Yahoo!finance. January 15, 2023. Retrieved January 17, 2024.
• 3. ”BenevolentAI announces restructure and strategic focus”. HTN. June 2, 2023. Retrieved January 17, 2024.
• 4. ”ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN DRUG DISCOVERY: Hope or hype?”. ACS. 2019. Retrieved January 17, 2024.
• 5. ” Insilico’s AI Candidate for IPF Doses First Patient in Phase II”. Genengnews. June 27, 2023. Retrieved January 17, 2024.
• 6. ”Sanofi signs research tie-up with Hong Kong’s Insilico Medicine to accelerate AI-powered drug discovery”. Yahoo!finance. November 9, 2022. Retrieved January 17, 2024.
• 7. ”Atomwise Announces Nomination of its First AI-Driven Development”. Businesswire. October 3, 2023. Retrieved January 17, 2024.
• 8. ”ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN DRUG DISCOVERY: Hope or hype?”. ACS. 2019. Retrieved January 17, 2024.
• 9. ”ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN DRUG DISCOVERY: Hope or hype?”. ACS. 2019. Retrieved January 17, 2024.