Amazon Bio Discovery uses AI to compress 18-month drug research timelines into weeks

Amazon launches AI research tool to speed early-stage drug discovery

April 14 (Reuters) - Amazon's (AMZN.O), opens new tab cloud unit on Tuesday launched Amazon Bio Discovery, an artificial intelligence application designed to speed early-stage drug discovery by allowing scientists to run complex computational workflows without writing code. Drugmakers and technology companies have stepped up efforts to use AI to accelerate drug development. Amazon Web Services said in a blog post that Amazon Bio Discovery gives researchers access to a library of specialized biological foundation models that can generate and evaluate potential drug molecules, along with an AI agent that helps users select models, ⁠set parameters and interpret results. Researchers can send shortlisted candidates to integrated lab partners for synthesis and testing, with results routed back into the system to guide the next round of design. "(It) would take, 18 months to come up with 300 potential drug candidates. Now, scientists can quickly create 300 candidates within a couple of weeks," Rajiv Chopra, vice president of healthcare AI and life sciences at AWS, said in an interview with Reuters. Chopra said the rapid rise of drug-discovery models has turned computational biologists who can ⁠translate lab goals into machine-learning pipelines into a bottleneck. AWS said Bayer (BAYGn.DE), opens new tab, the Broad Institute and Voyager Therapeutics (VYGR.O), opens new tab are among early adopters, and 19 of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies already use its cloud services. In a collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, AWS said the platform ⁠used multiple models to generate nearly 300,000 novel antibody molecules and narrow them to 100,000 candidates for lab testing by partner Twist Bioscience (TWST.O), opens new tab, compressing work that can take months into weeks. Chopra said ⁠the service is intended to augment, not replace, scientists and contract research organizations. AWS will offer a free trial with five experimental units before introducing subscription tiers. AWS, Boston ⁠Consulting Group and Merck (MRK.N), opens new tab will also unveil an AI platform at AWS's Life Science Symposium aimed at improving clinical trial site selection, a common bottleneck in drug development. Reporting by Sahil Pandey and Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Amazon launches AI Bio platform to accelerate early-stage drug discovery

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced this Tuesday the launch of its AI bio tool, Amazon Bio Discovery, to accelerate the early-stage process of drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry. The application aims to help scientists design and test novel drugs in a fast and secure way. Amazon Bio Discovery enables scientists to run complex computational workflows through more than 40 AI-specialized foundational models, trained on a wide range of biological datasets. These models generate and evaluate potential drug molecules, alongside AI agents that help scientists to select models, optimize inputs and evaluate candidates according to their research. Researchers can send the selected candidate list to integrated lab partners for synthesis and testing, and the results are sent back to the application for analysis and model refinement, creating what AWS calls the lab-in-the-loop. With the increased rise of AI biological models, each one with different characteristics, computational biologists responsible for operationalizing these models experience bottlenecks, while bench scientists with deep expertise encounter slow processes for research or experimenting, due to a lack of direct access to computational tools. Amazon Bio Discovery aims to solve this problem by giving access to a platform that brings computational design and wet-lab validation. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who recently partnered with Amazon Bio Discovery, states that they designed nearly 300,000 new antibody molecules and sent top 100,000 candidates for testing, enhancing the workflow timeframe from one year to just weeks. Rajiv Chopra, vice president of healthcare AI and life sciences at AWS, reportedly said that the service is intended to increase scientists and contract research organizations, instead of replacing them. Additionally, Tycho Peterson, Jefferies analyst, said that AI fears of reducing the need for instruments in drug research are inflated, since there is scope for increased investment and return as research programs escalate. AWS mentioned that, among the early adopters of Amazon Bio Discovery are Bayer, the Broad Institute and Voyager Therapeutics, alongside the endorsement of its cloud services by 19 of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies.

Amazon's new AI Bio Discovery tool can provide 'every researcher' with 'lab-in-the-loop drug discovery' - 40+ AI biology models can filter 300,000 novel antibody candidates down to the top results for testing in just weeks

The world of AI-powered drug discovery just got a powerful new tool * AWS reveals new AI drug discovery tool * Amazon Bio Discovery removes the technical barriers to high computational AI experiments * The tool can cut drug testing times significantly A new AI powered drug discovery tool has been launched by Amazon Web Services (AWS). The Amazon Bio Discovery tool helps researchers speed up the discovery of new drugs by providing scientists with the ability to run complex computational loads without the need for technical expertise. Amazon's cloud platform touts the tools as being capable of reducing the timescale for an antibody design workflow from 12 months to just weeks. AI speeds up drug discovery Amazon Bio Discovery provides a catalog of foundational models specialized for drug discovery, with the option for scientists to upload models from third parties. Of course, the tool wouldn't be complete without an AI agent, which can guide users through selecting the right models and parameters for their research. When the experiment is ready to start, the AI agent begins searching through data sources and foundational biological factors - and it even provides references and scientific rationale for its predictions and suggestions. The tool then filters down the results to the top selection of results which can then be sent to one of Amazon's integrated lab partners for synthesis and testing without the need for a manual handover that can cause delays. The results from lab testing are then automatically fed back into Amazon Bio Discovery for additional analysis. The continuous back and forth feedback between the integrated labs and researchers allows for rapid fine-tuning of results, speeding up the time between design, testing, and synthesis. In collaborative testing with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Amazon Bio Discovery helped narrow down a selection of 300,000 antibody candidates to the top 100,000 and sent them for testing "in weeks versus up to a year using traditional design methods." AWS also collaborated with Gray Lab at Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering to produce the 'Antibody Developability Benchmark' - the "largest and most diverse" antibody dataset designed to help evaluate AI-guided antibody design. Luca Giancardo, an applied scientist with Amazon Web Services said, "This dataset will allow researchers to confidently be able to answer 'Which model is better suited for our purposes?'. Today there are many computational models coming out that are mostly evaluated on either proprietary data or public datasets, which are not representative of antibody heterogeneity. That means deciding what is better or worse is very, very hard -- if not impossible." Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button! And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

The Drug Discovery Process Is Cumbersome. Amazon Wants to Fix It With AI

The process of discovering new drugs and bringing them to market is notoriously slow and inefficient. Amazon Web Services is hoping to use AI to streamline this process, it announced Tuesday. Amazon Bio Discovery is the tech giant's new AI-powered agentic application designed to help scientists design and test drugs more quickly. The new application is set to give scientists access to multiple specialized AI models called biological foundation models, trained on vast biological datasets. "AI agents make powerful scientific capabilities accessible to all drug researchers, not just those with computational expertise," said Rajiv Chopra, vice president of AWS Healthcare AI and Life Sciences. "These AI systems can help scientists design drug molecules, coordinate testing, learn from results, and get smarter with each experiment. This combination of cutting-edge AI and the robust, secure infrastructure AWS has built for regulated industries allows scientists to accelerate antibody discovery in ways that weren't possible before." The new platform is intended to help identify models that scientists can use to generate and evaluate potential drug molecules to accelerate antibody therapies during the early stages of drug discovery.

AWS Launches Amazon Bio Discovery to Speed AI Drug Development | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. Amazon Bio Discovery, announced last week, is designed to offer scientists direct access to a wide range of specialized AI models known on biological foundation models (bioFMs) that are trained using large biological datasets. "These models generate and evaluate potential drug molecules, known as candidates, helping scientists accelerate antibody therapies during the early stages of drug discovery," the announcement said. "But access alone is not enough." Amazon Bio Discovery allows scientists to converse naturally in their preferred terminology with an AI agent to choose the appropriate models for their research goals, optimize inputs and gauge candidates for experimentation, the announcement said. In addition, scientists also train models on their prior experimental data for more accurate predictions, and send candidates to physical labs for synthesis and testing, "with results routing back to the application for rapid iteration, creating a lab-in-the-loop experimentation cycle," the announcement added. "AI agents make powerful scientific capabilities accessible to all drug researchers, not just those with computational expertise," Rajiv Chopra, vice president of AWS healthcare AI and life sciences, said in the announcement. "These AI systems can help scientists design drug molecules, coordinate testing, learn from results, and get smarter with each experiment. This combination of cutting-edge AI and the robust, secure infrastructure AWS has built for regulated industries allows scientists to accelerate antibody discovery in ways that weren't possible before." The announcement comes as pharmaceutical companies are reshaping their operating models around AI to offset the cost of drug development, as PYMNTS wrote earlier this year. "By embedding machine learning into trial execution and compliance infrastructure, drugmakers are targeting the most costly and failure-prone bottlenecks in how therapies are tested, reviewed and ultimately brought to market," that report said. Big Tech and hardware players are entering these workflows, blurring the boundaries between IT and life sciences. For instance, Nvidia and Eli Lilly announced a co-innovation lab to drive drug discovery. Meanwhile, Google's research division is using Gemma AI models for cancer therapy discovery, showing how large-language and generative models can analyze biological pathways and suggest novel therapeutic hypotheses. "Taken together, these developments point to a broader reality: AI is no longer a niche computational aid in early R&D," that report said. "It is becoming an end-to-end operational ecosystem that supports patient selection, safety monitoring, documentation generation, trial logistics and regulatory engagement."

Jefferies Comments on Amazon launch of Bio Discovery By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) introduced its Bio Discovery offering on Tuesday, providing researchers with access to over 40 AI biology models for drug discovery work. The new platform combines computational design with wet-lab validation, allowing bench scientists to access tools that can accelerate research without requiring direct computational expertise. Users can access the AI models, upload custom models, or use third-party licensed models through the platform. Amazon Bio Discovery includes integrated lab partners such as Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE:DNA) and Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ:TWST) to enable wet-lab validation. The company announced the offering during its AWS Life Science Symposium on Tuesday. The antibody design workflow, validated by Sloan Kettering with 300,000 targets yielding 100,000 candidates, includes four steps. Users can evaluate models and build workflows by selecting from the catalog of AI biology models. The platform then guides users through antibody-design choices with AI agents, delivering recommendations without requiring code writing. The system returns AI-generated summaries with pre-filtered antibody candidates that have passed optimization and liability checks. Selected candidates can be sent directly to integrated lab partners with real-time cost and turnaround time estimates. Results automatically flow back into the platform for comparison against predictions. Jefferies analysts noted that projects previously waiting in queues can move forward immediately, and more accurate workflows may allow computational biologists to support additional programs. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

Amazon launches AI platform to accelerate drug discovery

Amazon, through its AWS subsidiary, has unveiled Amazon Bio Discovery, an artificial intelligence platform designed to expedite the early stages of pharmaceutical research. The tool enables scientists to execute complex workflows without programming, leveraging a library of biological models capable of generating and evaluating candidate molecules. An AI agent assists users in model selection, parameter tuning, and result analysis, amid intensifying competition surrounding the integration of AI in healthcare.