Prognostix
Industry: Antibiotic drug development
Anti-microbial resistance (AMR) is an ever-increasing concern for human health, as dangerous bacteria continue to mutate out of susceptibility to antibiotic drugs faster than novel drugs are introduced.
Prognostix is developing a systemic solution to this problem, using AI and leading-edge technology to identify opportunities for novel antibiotics and greatly accelerate their development. Primary and secondary site inhibitors of a key enzyme, dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), synergistically inhibit the growth of multi-drug resistant bacteria and their mutations toward antibiotic resistance.
The Prognostix AI software platform will aid with preclinical discovery, bringing the 3-year process of screening 5,000-10,000 molecules down to a 2-year process of analyzing only 50-100 molecules. The FINDSITE virtual ligand screening platform will reduce the number of molecules needed for screening to find the desired information.
Only a third or so of antibiotic drugs in development will successfully make it to market. Prognostix’ system seeks to reduce the risk involved with these ventures. Their techniques reduce the number of leads to synthesize by a factor of 2 to 3, leading to a 5X reduction in cost, a year reduction in development time, and improves the likelihood of passing the Phase 1 FDA safety trial by a factor of 2.
Prognostix’ target customer is big pharma, who will license the candidate combination antibiotic therapy.
