Aitia and Servier Expand AI-Driven Digital Twin Partnership for Brain Cancer Drug Discovery

SOMERVILLE, Mass., Oct. 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Aitia, a biotech company known for its innovative use of causal AI and Digital Twins in drug discovery, is expanding its collaboration with Servier, a renowned independent pharmaceutical company, to address gliomas—a diverse group of brain cancers. This partnership aims to leverage Aitia's advanced technology, which utilizes extensive patient cancer tissue data, to develop new treatments for this challenging and deadly disease.

As part of the collaboration, Aitia and Servier will focus on discovering and validating new drug targets and candidates for glioma by utilizing Aitia's Gemini Digital Twins and Servier's expertise in therapeutic discovery and clinical development in oncology. This partnership will delve into the complex biology of gliomas, exploring resistance mechanisms and drug responses on an individual patient basis. Recently, Servier announced the approval of VORANIGO, a breakthrough brain cancer drug for Grade 2 astrocytoma or oligodendroglioma with IDH mutations, marking the first approval in this field in nearly 25 years.

Gliomas, originating from glial cells in the brain or spinal cord, affect over 190,000 people globally each year. Glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of glioma, has an average survival time of around 15 months post-diagnosis, with less than 7% of patients living beyond five years, per the National Brain Tumor Society. Despite current standard treatments like surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, glioblastoma frequently recurs, and no curative therapies are available.

Fabien Schmidlin, Global Head of Translational Medicine at Servier, expressed enthusiasm about the expanded collaboration with Aitia. He emphasized Servier's dedication to advancing therapies for cancer patients with high unmet medical needs. Schmidlin believes that combining Aitia's Gemini Digital Twins with Servier's oncology expertise, particularly in targeting molecular mutations, could pave the way for more effective treatments.

Colin Hill, CEO and co-founder of Aitia, highlighted the critical need for new approaches to glioma treatment, given the lack of broadly effective therapies. He believes that the combination of Aitia's Gemini Digital Twins and Servier's expertise in difficult-to-treat cancers could lead to groundbreaking therapies for glioma.

This collaboration marks the fourth research area where Aitia and Servier are working together. Their partnership began in 2022 to enhance drug discovery and development efforts in Multiple Myeloma. It expanded in 2023 to include pancreatic cancer and again in January 2024 to identify patient responders for Servier's LRRK2 inhibitor in Parkinson's disease.

Aitia's approach relies on two key innovations: causal AI and Gemini Digital Twins. Causal AI identifies genetic or molecular changes driving diseases and patient responses to therapies. Gemini Digital Twins are virtual models derived from extensive genetic, multi-omic, and clinical data from patients. These models reveal how genes, proteins, and other molecules interact within cells and tissues, driving clinical outcomes. Researchers can rapidly test numerous experiments on these virtual models, leading to the discovery and selection of drug candidates with a higher likelihood of success in clinical trials for specific patient groups.

Aitia is dedicated to discovering next-generation breakthrough drugs in neurodegenerative diseases and oncology, including Huntington's disease. By leveraging multi-omic patient data, high-performance computing, and causal AI, Aitia's Gemini Digital Twins uncover hidden biological mechanisms of disease, transforming the discovery and development of new therapeutics. Gemini Digital Twins have accelerated R&D in oncology, neurodegeneration, cardiometabolic, and immunology.

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