Artificial intelligence tools have drawn the interest of many drugmakers hoping to use it to unearth new therapeutic targets.
Launched in 2015, Verge has raised over $100 million from a variety of investors, including the asset management firm Blackrock and large pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Merck & Co. Rather than follow the typical path for identifying new drug targets, which often involves animal or cell models, Verge uses machine learning to analyze genomic data from human tissue samples. The biotech claims this method allows it to “rapidly advance new data insights into clinical candidates.”
