Unlocking the Code to Faster Drug Development
Cyclica is using artificial intelligence and biophysics to change the equation for drug development, helping pharma create better drugs for a broader range of diseases.
Contributed by Dr. Jaime Hope, an attending physician at Beaumont Health System and a Professor at Oakland University’s William Beaumont School of Medicine.
We seem to have a love-hate relationship with prescription drugs. They save lives every day, yet they’ve also become a source of discomfort, confusion and frustration. First, there are the side effects — which I see so often as a practicing emergency physician. When you have an infection, you take antibiotics in the hopes of killing the microscopic bad guys. What you don’t bargain for are the all-too-common nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. And then there are the diseases that could have effective drugs but don’t just because the market isn’t lucrative enough.
Why doesn’t the pharmaceutical industry just make more, and better, drugs? The cost to develop a new drug, prove it is safe and effective, and secure approval, can be astronomical — ranging from $10 million to $2 billion. Part of the reason it’s so expensive is that 9 out of 10 drugs are found to be unsafe or ineffective, so they don’t reach the market. Creating drugs for rare diseases is also a risky and costly investment, so some pharmaceutical companies just avoid it altogether.
Cyclica, a Toronto-based startup, is working to change the game, revolutionizing the drug development process with their combination of AI and biophysics. They have a cloud-based platform that, according to their website, “uncovers the polypharmacological profiles of small molecules to provide insights into target identification, drug repurposing, lead prioritization, and adverse effect elucidation”. In other words, they’ve created tools to help scientists design, screen, and personalize small molecules.
Cyclica also refers to side effects as “off target interactions,” the result of a drug interacting with dozens, if not hundreds, of proteins before it is eliminated from the body. They know that the off-target interactions can impact drug safety and the identification of these can help minimize side effects and can also lead to drug repurposing opportunities.
Imagine how the process of drug development and testing could leap ahead. By knowing what compounds are in a drug, scientists could enter it into a database to see how it will work and what potential side effects it might create.
For example, if I were a scientist creating a new antibiotic called Awesomecillin designed to treat MRSA skin abscesses, I want to make sure my drug can get out of the bloodstream, into the skin, and reach the MRSA bacteria in the abscess I am trying to target. There are a lot of doors this drug needs to cross from entering the mouth to ninja-kicking the MRSA bacteria in the puss-filled landscape on the patient’s right forearm. A database that helps me know what bioprofile will help get Awesomecillin to the right place — rather than testing a bunch of compounds on test subjects — would save me multiple iterations of mistakes. In other words, I’d save time and money, plus, I’d have more opportunities to sidestep nasty side effects.
“We used to get questions about validation, now we get questions about how companies can leverage their own data to integrate it into our platform and how we can integrate our technology into their existing workflows. Now, instead of hearing “no,” we hear “show me.”
Cyclica has worked with top pharma and global research institutions in order to create a valid and robust database. Clients want to integrate their data with the platform and as a result help drive future innovation. Working with Pharma scientists (who, like doctors, are inherently skeptical), Cyclica CEO Naheed Kurji knows that scientists want validation. “We listened to their skepticism and started validation studies” he said. “We have peer-reviewed publications, case review studies, and provide a wealth of data on reliability.” This has substantially altered the way they have interacted with their clients. Kurji explains: “We used to get questions about validation, now we get questions about how companies can leverage their own data to integrate it into our platform and how we can integrate our technology into their existing workflows. Now, instead of hearing “no,” we hear “show me.”
The Cyclica team has embraced a collaborative approach with their clients. “We ask for customer feedback, both positive and constructive, about every interface with the company starting with the first point of contact,” says Kurji. “Our goal is to see how we can get as much feedback as possible from them to help drive our future innovation while showing them that future innovation will lead to significant value from them. We are hyper client-centered.”
Thinking back to the side effects of so many antibiotics and thinking ahead to the custom creation of drugs like my Awesomecillin, a targeted and effective med with minimal side effects, it’s easy to feel the potential. The novel combination of science and technology has the ability to create an enormous impact on pharmaceutical development. And if drug development costs are substantially reduced, the number of drugs that fail to prove to be safe and effective are reduced or eliminated, this can free up some of the estimated $58.8 billion pharmaceutical companies spend on research and development to target rare diseases and provide safer and more effective medications.
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