Russian pharmaceutical company R-Pharm and the AIRI Institute, which specializes in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, are jointly implementing a project to develop drugs for treating neurodegenerative brain diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease.
The AI-powered platform, developed with Sber’s support, will analyze diseases at a molecular level and generate thousands of virtual candidate molecules. The most promising ones will be selected for further research. R-Pharm’s press office told GxP News that this approach is expected to drastically reduce the time and cost of preclinical development, potentially making vital drugs available to patients years earlier.
The partners will focus on developing targeted antibodies and a delivery system designed to enable therapeutic agents to cross the blood-brain barrier. This would allow for direct targeting of pathological processes in the brain, significantly improving treatment efficacy.
AIRI stated that the results of the first preclinical trials for the Alzheimer’s drugs being developed under the project are expected as early as next year.
It was noted that the platform could, in the future, also aid in creating drugs for other diseases.
The project is being carried out under a cooperation agreement the companies signed at the XXVIII St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June.
