Cloud computing is revolutionizing the pharmaceutical industry like

Cloud computing is becoming the cornerstone of digital transformation, as it not only provides utilities for computing technology but also hospitals and health care systems. Even pharmaceutical companies are using the cloud to fundamentally change their business practices.

The discovery of computational drug model uses a set of cloud computing and artificial intelligence to make the pharmaceutical development process faster and cheaper. Large drug companies are taking advantage of the advances in AI and cloud computing power to test this new approach.

Pharmaceutical companies are using this high-tech process to develop and improve traditional remedies as well as complete new drug lists that work at the DNA and RNA levels to prevent diseases. Huge cloud providers are new important partners for this drug development process.

To understand why this combination is bringing about the revolution for the pharmaceutical industry, you need to understand how slow, risky and expensive the drug development process in the US.

Research drug development – a costly and risky process

When a pharmaceutical company wants to develop a new drug, the team needs to choose a condition and a molecule to begin exploring its capabilities. When the company found a promising compound, the clinical trial began.

New remedies need to successfully pass 4 stages for FDA approval. It is a long and expensive process. Depending on the type of drug tested, the second test phase can cost between 7 million USD and 19 million USD, and the budget for stage 3 is even higher: from 11.5 million USD to 52.9 million USD. Only about 13% of drugs begin this process to reach drug stores.

But with the method of computing model applied in the process of drug development, the chance of success will be higher. Researchers can use this model to determine which drug is the safest for patients and has the least side effects. The right choice from the beginning of the development process will help increase the likelihood of new drugs becoming more effective as well as improving existing products.

That’s why drug companies need the huge computing power that cloud companies are providing, as well as the ability to scale computing quickly. Amazon Web Service, Microsoft and Alphabet (Google) are all working with drug companies and startups to bring this new approach to drug development.

Cloud companies are contributing to this process

Currently AWS is a central factor for the research and development and production of drugs at Moderna. Moderna is the company that created new treatments using Information RNA (Messenger RNA or mRNA). Medications built with mRNA can tell the body to make certain proteins that treat or prevent a particular disease.

Currently Moderna is using AWS cloud computing capabilities to run algorithms to design each mRNA sequence. Moderna uses Amazon EC2 instances to handle calculations and return results. With AWS, Moderna can shorten the time needed to find a potential drug for clinical trials and bring new treatments.

In 2017, Microsoft announced the establishment of a technology development alliance with Parexel, a global bio-pharmaceutical service organization. These companies combine Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure with Parexel’s clinical technology to support drug development.

In addition, Microsoft is the original back-up company for Cloud Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery company founded in 2011. The company’s technology platform called Quantum Molecular Design uses artificial intelligence, quantum chemistry. high-level and cloud computing to identify the most promising candidates for small-molecular treatments.

Alphabet also does not want to miss the opportunity to create a new breakthrough for a long-standing industry like pharmaceuticals, by focusing on AI. Health team at DeepMind – AI startup, acquired by Alphabet in 2014 – is using AI to understand the protein chain’s winding mechanism.

Nearly every function of the body is guided by the shape and movement of proteins. Therefore, when proteins become deformed or distorted, it can lead to a variety of diseases, including diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. If researchers have a tool to precisely adjust protein structure, it will solve many of the problems of the 21st century, such as health, ecology, environment and almost anything related. to living systems.

In late 2018, DeepMind launched one of its products AlphaFold. Its algorithm has beaten 97 other competitors in the contest to predict the protein structure of rolls with the correct forecast of 25 out of 43 proteins, while the second opponent only correctly predicts 3 of 43. the protein.