Samsung announced on the 18th that it will invest in the U.S. bio venture corporation Generate Biomedicines through the Life Science Fund it established for the development of new technologies and businesses in the life sciences sector. This corporation possesses generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology that can significantly reduce the drug development period.
The Samsung Life Science Fund is a venture investment fund jointly created with 240 billion won contributed by Samsung C&T, Samsung BioLogics, and Samsung Bioepis. Samsung Venture Investment is managing the fund.
According to Samsung, Generate Biomedicines has protein design technology utilizing generative AI and machine learning. It is also building capabilities to accumulate large-scale data to enhance AI model performance and increase the success rate of drug development.
In particular, it can quickly design de novo proteins with desired characteristics and functions through its in-house developed generative AI program, Chroma. Currently, the corporation is developing new drugs for various disease areas, including cancer, immune disorders, and infectious diseases.
Through this investment, Samsung plans to establish a production ecosystem as a strategic collaboration partner for contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) when development is successful, and to create multifaceted collaboration relationships, including joint drug development to promote AI-based business growth. There are evaluations that Samsung is securing new innovative momentum by expanding its investments in the AI sector.
John Lim, CEO of Samsung BioLogics, noted, "We have seen the potential of Generate to develop innovative therapeutics and hope to create an ecosystem for collaboration in development, manufacturing, and research and development (R&D) fields by leveraging Generate’s strengths in artificial intelligence and machine learning, leading to advancements in next-generation pharmaceuticals that our customers require."
Mike Nally, CEO of Generate, stated, "With the support of key partners like Samsung, we aim to continuously advance our platform and generate high-quality data to solve challenges in the healthcare sector, and we plan to add 3 to 6 clinical programs within the next 18 months in addition to our ongoing clinical programs."
Meanwhile, the Samsung Life Science Fund has invested in corporations such as Gene Therapy developed by Jay Cure, Latus Bio, next-generation antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) developer Alaris BioTech, domestic bio corporations such as AIMed Bio, and Cell Biomedicine, which owns messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) and lipid nanoparticle (LNP) platforms, as well as Flagship Pioneering, a venture capital firm that establishes and nurtures innovative biotech technologies.