BOSTON and TEL-AVIV, Israel, Oct. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Quris, an artificial intelligence (AI) innovator disrupting the pharmaceutical arena, today launched the first clinical prediction AI platform to predict which drug candidates will safely work in humans – dramatically improving efficacy and cutting drug development costs. Quris uses AI-powered miniaturized “patients-on-a-chip” to avoid the tremendous risks and costs of failed clinical trials and eliminate the reliance on ineffective animal testing under the scientific leadership of industry visionaries, including Nobel Laureate Aaron Ciechanover and Dr. Robert S. Langer, co-founder of Moderna.
“We are at the tipping point of the modernization of drug discovery. I think the Quris platform could be of significant value to pharma companies and the health of society at large,” noted Langer, a lauded Institute Professor at MIT and the most cited engineer in history.
“Put simply: We are not mice so what works in animal-based trials is not a proper indicator of what will work for people,” added Ciechanover, MD, DSc. “Using a breakthrough way to test drug candidates on miniaturized patients on chips, Quris can demonstrate their safety and efficacy, or lack thereof, through preliminary chip-based clinical trials. This has never been done before, and Quris is charting the path.” Watch this video for his full commentary on what makes Quris revolutionary.
Focused initially on rare genetic diseases that cannot be modeled in animals, Quris also announced that it is prepping the first drug developed on the platform for clinical trials in 2022. The first Quris drug addresses Fragile X syndrome (FXS), the most common inherited cause of autism and intellectual disabilities worldwide.
“Our drug discovery process is broken, and technology darlings across biotech, artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data have not been able to overcome the colossal clinical trial failure rate,” added Dr. Kobi Richter, founder and chief technology officer of Medinol. “With a remarkable team of scientific pioneers at the helm and its extraordinary clinical prediction platform, Quris will be a gamechanger for the industry and lead the next era of drug discovery.”
In partnership with The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) Research Institute, Quris is developing a fully automated, self-training AI platform that better predicts clinical safety and efficacy for new drug candidates. Working with the world’s leading independent non-profit research institute dedicated to translating cutting-edge stem cell research into clinical breakthroughs and cures for patients, Quris will be able to benefit from NYSCF’s unmatched stem-cell automation technology.
“We are at the cusp of a complete paradigm shift in drug testing and development,” noted Susan L. Solomon, JD, Founder and CEO of the NYSCF Research Institute, who is now joining the Quris Advisory Board. “Our team of scientists is excited about the collaboration with Quris, which leverages a powerful synergy between our stem-cell automation technology with Quris’ impressive AI-Chip-on-Chip technology platform and team, to better predict clinical safety of drugs for individual patients.” For more on Solomon’s perspective on the promise of research with stem cells, watch her TED Talk.
With 18 granted and pending patents, its chip-on-chip platform uses a distinct combination of low-cost, disposable “miniaturized biology” chips and novel real-time nano-sensor and nano-circulation chips to continuously train the Quris AI engine and drug candidate safety and efficacy predictor. Combining the power of the NYSCF and Quris’ AI-based clinical prediction, high-throughput screening and stem cell disease modeling, the Quris platform will be trained on known safe and toxic drugs, so it can then rapidly screen thousands of potential drug formulations on hundreds of genetically diverse, miniaturized “patients-on-a-chip” to test efficacy at a fraction of the cost.
“Intensely competitive and wildly expensive, AI-driven drug discovery has become the leading frontier for pharma innovation. But while AI applications in pharma have surged, a core piece needed to solve the drug discovery puzzle has been missing and most novel drugs still fail clinical trials – costing pharma companies more than $30 billion annually,” stated Quris CEO Isaac Bentwich. “Quris is the first AI platform to predict which drug candidates will safely work in humans, filling a critical gap in clinical prediction.”
Coinciding with its public launch, the company also announced the close of an $9 million seed round of funding led by Dr. Judith Richter and Dr. Kobi Richter, pioneers of cardiovascular intervention therapeutics, with participation from Moshe Yanai, a disruptive data-storage technology leader, and strategic angel investors. Led by an impressive founding team, which holds 48 patents, has 12 FDA-approved products in the market and previously used this AI approach to disrupt genomics, discovering more novel micro-RNA genes than all of the world’s universities combined, the funding will be used to help Quris revolutionize the drug development process by accelerating its novel drug therapy research, amplifying partnership-building efforts and substantially growing its team.
More details will be disclosed during a live presentation with Quris CEO Isaac Bentwich at the NYSCF Conference, a virtual event taking place October 19-20, 2021. Register to join today.
About Quris
Quris, the world’s first clinical-prediction AI platform ensures the safety and efficacy of new drugs. Revolutionizing the drug development process, the company is pioneering clinical trials on chips – testing thousands of novel drug candidates on hundreds of miniaturized “patients-on-a-chip”. Its fully automated, self-training AI platform accurately predicts clinical safety and efficacy for novel drugs faster and more cost effectively than ever before – all while minimizing animal testing. Dual-headquartered in Boston and Israel and backed by strategic biotech and big data investors, Quris is led by a proven team of AI and medical research powerhouses who are already preparing its lead discovery for clinical trials. For more information, visit www.quris.ai.
For more information, please contact:
Erica Camilo
Tel. +1 610-639-5644
e-mail: erica@connexacommunications.com
