In a game-changing move, Genentech, a key player in the Roche Group, is pioneering the use of generative AI to revolutionize therapeutic discovery and delivery. Teaming up with NVIDIA, the biotechnology pioneer aims to transform the landscape of drug development, optimizing and accelerating proprietary algorithms.
The collaboration centers on leveraging NVIDIA DGX Cloud, an AI supercomputing platform, to speed up Genentech’s models. Specifically, Genentech plans to harness the power of NVIDIA BioNeMo. According to NVIDIA, it is a platform designed to simplify, accelerate, and “scale generative AI applications for computational drug discovery.”
BioNeMo, now available as a training service, enables biotech companies to customize models at scale. Genentech focuses on integrating BioNeMo cloud APIs directly into computational drug discovery workflows, allowing researchers to pre-train or fine-tune models on DGX Cloud.
NVIDIA stated in its blog that the partnership primarily focuses on “optimizing Genentech’s drug discovery AI” models within its innovative “lab in a loop” framework. The objective is clear: empower researchers to decipher complex biomolecular patterns, disrupting drug development and enhancing the success rate of R&D efforts.
Aviv Regev, Executive Vice President of Genentech Research & Early Development, emphasized the collaboration’s potential to turbocharge the discovery and design of therapeutics, ultimately improving patient lives globally.
Drug discovery is a complex and time-consuming process, but AI can be transformative. Through its R&D group, gRED, Genentech has been at the forefront of utilizing AI to discover novel therapeutics and understand the intricacies of biology and diseases.
The collaboration with NVIDIA aims to optimize Genentech’s custom-developed models, reducing the time it takes to discover and develop drugs. The “lab in a loop” framework, an iterative approach to molecular design, will benefit from NVIDIA’s expertise in accelerating the training and inference of Genentech’s drug discovery models.
Kimberly Powell, Vice President of Healthcare at NVIDIA, highlighted the transformative role of AI in drug discovery and development, expressing the shared goal of unlocking scientific innovation.
As this partnership unfolds, it promises to reshape drug discovery and provide valuable insights for NVIDIA. The AI experts at NVIDIA plan to use their newfound knowledge to enhance BioNeMo and other platforms, ensuring they cater to the evolving needs of the biotech industry.
The collaboration between NVIDIA and Genentech stands as a testament to the immense potential of AI in accelerating scientific progress and unearthing groundbreaking insights in healthcare and life sciences.
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