Acquisition expected to support strategic collaboration with M42 on AI-enabled drug development hub in Abu Dhabi.
Longevity biotech powerhouse Juvenescence has expanded its AI-driven drug discovery capabilities through the acquisition of Ro5, a company specializing in AI and machine learning platforms for pharmaceutical research. The strategic move aims to accelerate the development of Juvenescence’s pipeline of therapeutics targeting age-related diseases, also strengthens its ongoing partnership with Abu Dhabi healthcare giant M42.
M42, which led the recent $76 million first close of Juvenescence’s Series B-1 financing round, is a fast-growing tech-enabled healthcare company. The two companies are working together to establish an AI-enabled drug development hub in Abu Dhabi, combining M42’s strengths in clinical data and healthcare delivery with Juvenescence’s drug discovery platforms – and Ro5’s technology is expected to play a key role.
“Ro5’s experienced team and proprietary toolkit was a perfect and complementary fit for Juvenescence,” Richard Marshall, CEO of Juvenescence, told us. “It also aligns perfectly with our UAE partner M42’s ambition to impact human health through medicines development using AI/ML. The prospect of our combined teams and knowledge working together is mouth-watering! And we’ve already started.”
The Ro5 platform applies sophisticated neural network architectures that analyze relationships between molecular properties and pharmacological behavior, and is designed to reduce the time and cost of drug development.
“Embedding our AI-driven drug discovery capabilities into Juvenescence’s operations will accelerate their ability to advance next-generation therapeutics,” said Ro5 CEO Charles Dazler Knuff. “Together with our partners at M42 we are also laying the foundations for a pioneering life sciences ecosystem in Abu Dhabi that leverages AI innovation to transform patient care and global health outcomes.”
Juvenescence believes Ro5’s technologies and expertise will augment its capacity to generate and develop novel AI-enabled therapeutics. The company is currently advancing clinical programs in cognition, cardio-metabolism, immunity and cellular repair, which collectively aim to treat and prevent diseases associated with aging.
“No ‘tech’ company should be without access to the rapidly broadening AI/ML toolkit. For sure, this technology can aid all aspects of drug development,” Marshall told us. “However, much of what remains a highly complex endeavour will remain a hybrid between in silico modelling and in vitro/vivo observation, not least human trials and healthcare delivery. So, you need the best of both disciplines working together to apply AI/ML in a meaningful and ultimately clinically effective way.”
Ro5’s platform is underpinned by a proprietary “biomedical knowledge graph” containing over 85 million nodes and about 400 million relationships, which is designed to uncover novel associations in biological systems and evaluate drug targets based on a combination of biological, therapeutic and market potential. This is complemented with advanced cheminformatics and machine learning tools, designed to facilitate efficient compound discovery and design across the full discovery lifecycle – from initial hit identification through to lead optimization.
