VeriSIM Life is a company that is building AI-enabled biosimulation models. And VeriSIM is tackling one of the biggest obstacles to drug development: animal testing for drug development. Animal testing is slow, ethically questionable, and doesn’t act as much of a filter: 92% of all drug candidates that pass this preclinical testing never make it to market. Pulse 2.0 interviewed VeriSIM Life founder and CEO Jo Varshney to learn more.
Jo Varshney’s Background
Varshney grew up in India as an only child. And Varshney said:
“My parents made it very clear that I had to compete in everything that other kids, particularly boys, were doing because they would be at the top in school. So, I developed a thirst for knowledge very early on and had a strong understanding of computer programming by the time I was eight.”
“My first academic pursuit was a doctorate in Veterinary Medicine, but after completing it in 2010, I decided to extend my studies into Comparative Oncology/Genomics. I moved to the US to attend the University of Minnesota. I also later pursued graduate degrees in Comparative Pathology from Penn State and Computational Sciences from UC San Francisco.”
Formation Of VeriSIM Life
How did the idea for the company come together? Varshney shared:
“Throughout my education and beyond, I developed a variety of professional experiences in R&D, from developing novel microRNA biomarkers and 3D bone models to performing various genome editing tools, conducting NGS- small RNA sequencing and whole transcriptome analysis. My key takeaway from this period of my career boiled down to the profound impact of the translational gap that, for years, has cost the biopharma industry, and society as a whole, time, money, and lifesaving drugs.”
“I started realizing how difficult it is to translate from the lab to clinical trials, and it got me thinking there must be a faster, cheaper way. So, I then pursued further research in computer science and started questioning – how do we use machine learning and mathematical models to look at the data and infer what there could be in a new drug and what the effect might look like in human subjects?”
“I decided to build a virtual mouse, identifying mathematical models representing some of their physiological parameters. I wrote the code for the virtual mouse and selected a drug with publicly available data to run a simulation and compare the output for a match. I was astonished by the results and ended up entering a Google hackathon to build out the concept, and I won. VeriSIM Life was born shortly thereafter (in 2017), and the concept became the platform now known as BIOiSIM.”
Macroeconomic Effect
Has the current macroeconomic climate affected your company? Varshney acknowledged:
“The macroeconomic environment is definitely challenging, with budget cuts across the big commercial pharmaceutical industry rippling down to even the smaller biotechs. Additionally, access to capital is contracting which means that follow-on venture financing rounds are not happening as quickly or at all. For companies still early in their asset development stages, I think we’re seeing some of the riskier and early-stage programs being cut, which impacts the R&D teams at those companies.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Varshney explained:
“At VeriSIM Life we develop technology that accelerates and de-risks pharmaceutical research and development. You can think of it as being a “credit score” for drug candidates that helps our clients improve the clinical success of their science. Our mission is to eliminate inaccuracy and waste when translating drugs to clinical trials using multi-disciplinary quantitative methods and artificial intelligence to predict patient outcomes.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Varshney cited:
“Over the past few years, we’ve been working on several exciting projects, including new research with our biopharma and academic clients, new partnerships to further expand our impact, and opportunities to support regulatory initiatives through our expertise in pharmacological research and artificial intelligence.”
“This includes drug co-development with Mayo Clinic and our alliance with global information services provider Clarivate. But we’re most proud of the development of a pulmonary arterial hypertension therapy that our technology has accelerated to its investigational new drug milestone. This drug, sponsored by our subsidiary PulmoSIM Therapeutics, took less than 2 years to advance, which normally would have taken 5-7 years in research and experimentation.”
Customer Success Stories
Upon asking Varshney about customer success stories, she replied:
“We have been fortunate enough to work with some incredible partners, in one instance, we were able to save $3 million in conventional drug testing for a top 25 global pharma company by predicting translatable candidates in just two months.”
“Another one of our partners, a mid-sized biotech company, was able to save $2 million by predicting optimal compound combinations and dosing. By identifying biochemical descriptors in complex compounds, we were able to save a top-five global company 2.5 years of in-house testing, showcasing the value of incorporating AI and ML.”
Funding
After asking Varshney about funding, she revealed:
“We’ve garnered grants, funding and recognition from leaders across the industry and the public sector. To date, VeriSIM Life has raised more than $25 million in capital from investors including Morpheus, Intel Capital and Debiopharm Innovation Fund.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Varshney assessed:
“The failure rate of drug candidates in clinical trials is extremely high. Long before those drugs make it to trials, investigational leads fail to pass testing in the lab. It’s estimated that more than $28 billion is wasted in this preclinical research annually. That is the challenge and opportunity VeriSIM Life is addressing”
Opinion About Generative AI On Healthcare
How does Varshney anticipate Generative AI will continue to affect the job market moving forward? And Varshney pointed out:
“AI is the way of the future, there’s no getting around that. However, I feel as though the conversation around AI in healthcare and technology is often misrepresented. AI is a tool, it’s not a human replacement. While yes, it will change the way we complete work moving forward, the need for a human being to help facilitate the overall process will always remain. I like to say that AI is an evolution, not a revolution, so while it will definitely impact jobs over the next decade it will also create them and continue to assist the talented scientists that are already utilizing it.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Varshney concluded:
“Our competitive advantage is that we leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning with mechanistic modeling (biosimulation) and physics-based computing to make early and accurate predictions about compound safety and efficacy. In addition, VeriSIM Life’s unique Translational Index technology allows us to help our clients determine which drug candidate is superior to others by synthesizing multiple aspects of translatability, informing key stage-gate decisions and improving pre-clinical success rates.”
