South Korean pharmaceutical giant Daewoong Pharmaceutical has announced a major breakthrough in drug development, revolutionizing the industry with its AI system. The company has developed a new drug development system called Daewoong AI System (DAVIS), which utilizes artificial intelligence technology to secure drug candidates. Daewoong has also created a massive collection of 800 million preprocessed molecular models, known as the Daewoong Advanced Virtual Database (DAVID), to support the AI system.
The extensive database, DAVID, is the result of more than 40 years of research by Daewoong. To tailor the database specifically for AI drug development, the researchers underwent essential preprocessing to remove unnecessary information from complex compound structures. Publicly available compound open source data around the world was not suitable for this purpose. The company has also unveiled an AI-based Virtual Screening tool, which utilizes 3D modeling technology to detect active substances that target specific proteins. This tool enables the rapid discovery of new active substances with similar chemical characteristics eligible for patents.
The utilization of the AI-based Virtual Screening tool, according to Daewoong, has already yielded promising results in areas such as obesity, diabetes, and anti-cancer drugs. In addition to these advancements, the company has made significant progress in developing protein degraders, which greatly reduces trial-and-error processes in drug development. This is achieved through simultaneous antibody design and stability evaluation.
The potential impact of applying AI technology to drug development is significant. Daewoong claims that it could reduce the drug development period from an average of 15 years to just seven years, and reduce costs to approximately 600 billion won ($450 million). This is a drastic innovation compared to the current development period of 15 years and costs of 2 trillion to 3 trillion won. The National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation provided these figures.
Park Joon-seok, head of the Drug Discovery Center at Daewoong, expressed his enthusiasm for the collaboration between researchers and AI, stating, “When researchers and AI grow together, raising ‘insights’ together, we can take a step closer to the success of drug development.”
Daewoong Pharmaceutical’s breakthrough in drug development through its AI system, DAVIS, and the extensive molecular database, DAVID, signifies a major leap forward in the field. With the ability to rapidly discover new drug candidates and reduce costs and development time, this innovation has the potential to revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry. As the collaboration between researchers and AI deepens, the future of drug development looks more promising than ever.
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