In the development of drugs, the biggest risk is getting a new treatment to work safely in humans. That is a huge burden and a new artificial intelligence startup, Quris has secured $9 million in funding to attempt to reduce the costs and risks of failed clinical trials.
Quris is based in Boston and Tel Aviv and has built an AI platform that it says has the ability to predict which investigational drugs will work safely in humans. The AI-powered “patient on a chip” platform plans on reducing the risks linked with clinical trials that may fail as well as tampering with the reliance on animal testing by predicting the efficacy and safety of drugs before they get to humans.
The initial focus of the startup is on rare genetic diseases that cannot be modeled in animals. The first drug developed on the platform addresses fragile X syndrome, a common inherited cause of autism. The company said clinical trials for drugs will start in 2022.
Quris is making use of stem cell automation technology from the New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute. Susan Solomon the CEO and co-founder of nonprofit joined the Quris advisory board.
“Put simply: We are not mice so what works in animal-based trials is not a proper indicator of what will work for people said the M.D, Aaron Ciechanover in a statement. The M.D is one of the scientific leaders of Quris alongside the co-founder of Moderna, Robert Langer.
The platform is trained on known toxic and safe drugs so that the AI can screen thousands of potential formulations of drugs on genetically diverse “patients on a chip” with the use of stem cell disease modeling.
The startup got backing of Angel funding which are Kobi Richter and Jusith Richter, Ph.D. co-founder of stenting system maker Medinol and the founder of Infinidat, data storage Tech Company, Moshe Yanai.
