Vyant Bio [NASDAQ: VYNT]
VYNT]

As much as the pharma industry needs to expedite the discovery and development of new drugs, it only seems to be weighed down by long, complex, and obsolete processes. The underperformance of widely used pharma models for predicting drug efficacy and safety has further added to unnecessary delays resulting in high failure rates and high costs. Until now, the field of human biology in research has remained untouched, hiding the huge potential it has to offer in accelerating the process of drug development. By bringing human cells into the drug discovery process, human biology offers endless opportunities from high throughput, faster drug efficacy and approvals, to lower costs, among others.

Vyant Bio [NASDAQ: VYNT] is at the vantage point in delivering a proprietary discovery engine driven by human biology and data science to rapidly move from novel biological target identification and therapeutic compounds identification to investigational new drug approvals at the regulatory level. “At Vyant Bio, our human-powered approach to drug discovery maximizes the likelihood of clinical success and helps translate therapeutics from discovery to the clinic,” elaborates Jay Roberts, President and CEO of Vyant Bio. The company holds strong expertise in efficiently discovering novel neurology and oncology drugs.

microOrgan and 3D Organoids Advancing Drug Discovery

At its core, Vyant Bio’s Human microOrgan discovery platform drives successful clinical outcomes through patient-based discovery. By integrating human-based microOrgan technology, state-of-the-art engineering, advanced data science, regulatory rigor, and a deep personal commitment to the field, the company identifies drugs from the most viable, safe, and effective drug candidates capable of transforming lives. Vyant Bio can successfully visualize the drug’s impact on humans even before moving to second and third clinical trials by bringing human-derived cells into the in-vitro discovery process by using either primary patient-derived cells or through induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). With patient derived iPSC organoids, Vyant Bio drives de-risked high-throughput target and hit discovery.

At the heart of Vyant Bio’s technology of iPSC-derived 3D organoids is its expertise in growing micro-brains with an ideal mixture of neurons and astrocytes that help in measuring certain aspects such as neuronal cell signals. “The complexities associated with brain functions make it extremely difficult, from a scientific perspective to fully understand and appreciate how it works to discover associated drugs. Our microBrain technology built on human cells has proven to be a game-changer,” says Roberts. This microBrain technology offers high throughput clinic-based screening by comprehensively analyzing robust functional data to identify the most promising drug candidates, targets, and biomarkers via a quantified, unbiased rank order approach. The company can have up to 384 micro-organs on a plate and screen hundreds of different compounds, especially for neurology, to measure the impact of introduced drugs for the recovery of cells while also comparing the impact on healthy cells. In addition, Vyant Bio’s microBrain technology can also point out if the cells are dying when in contact with the compounds to report toxicity issues. Placed at the intersection of human biology and machine learning, the platform increases the probability of success and allows the firm to identify both new targets and compounds based upon a patient’s biology, which is critical for decision-making.

At Vyant Bio, our human-powered approach to drug discovery maximizes the likelihood of clinical success and helps translate therapeutics from discovery to the clinic

Vyant Bio also specializes in testing drugs on animals to identify safe medications that can be brought to the clinic. “Almost 95 percent of the compounds that are processed for toxicity fail, leading to reformulation which creates additional costs and complexity. We identify candidates on human-derived cells at high throughput and in vivo in live animals,” says Roberts.

Machine Learning Experts and Data Scientists as the Engine

Vyant Bio’s clinical processes and biological phases are made possible by leveraging the expertise of machine learning and expert data scientists at Vyant Bio. The team is the stimuli behind the company’s machine learning and computational analytics system that rapidly and efficiently collects the data, including digital visuals of micro-brains and the drug-induced changes, to review the positive impact of drugs. Challenging the standard long timeline and the vigorous task of collecting and examining clinical drug discovery data, Vyant Bio offers a speedy drug screening process. The company has partnered with Databricks, an AI and data-powered firm, to bring an open architecture approach that introduces machine learning and uses thousands of digital images of changing cell structure across hundreds of individual micro-brains. Such a vast amount of clinical information enables Vyant Bio to screen drugs every couple of hours, contrary to weeks taken by other firms. “Our data scientists are tremendously valuable to our team. They develop technology that helps in focusing on the cell’s biology and the changes by looking at incredibly detailed visualizations in the form of graphs, charts, and various diagrams,” states Roberts. “While scientific explanations might work, depicting the changes visually has been a huge asset to our customers to understand what drugs are effective.”

Strategic Partnerships: The Way Ahead

A client-partnership substantiates Vyant Bio’s proficiency to provide results that are accurate. One of the company’s first customers gave about 20 unmarked compounds for screening to validate the platform’s working ability. With no prior knowledge about these compounds’ chemical make-up, the firm performed a series of screenings on its 3D organoids micro-organs for Rett Syndrome to determine which drugs would work in this particular disease indication. “Our customer’s interests were fulfilled when the platform was able to determine accurately on 95 percent of the compounds that showed the rescue,” extols Roberts.

In many similar collaborations, Vyant Bio has succeeded in strategically bringing human cells into the drug discovery lifecycle. Another calculated business move has been to find and partner with technologically-driven enterprises that primarily use patient-derived cell assays in vitro. In March this year, that inspiration bore fruit when Vyant Bio merged with StemoniX, the primary source behind functional microOrgans. “With this merger, we can now operate in two modes: iPSE cells and primary patient cells,” states Roberts. Recently, another alliance with Cyclica, an AI-augmented platform for drug discovery, was announced. The company, in partnership with Cellaria, a scientific innovator that is revolutionizing cancer research, patient testing, and treatment development, is also designing unique proteins that can bind to specific receptors and act as suppressors to the over expression and then subsequently slow down tumour cell growth. With the new programs focused on oncology, the company aims to treat prostate cancers. “Besides partnerships, the underlying inspiration of Vyant Bio lies in changing the drug discovery landscape to reduce potential failure and high costs by blending the best of technology with the best of science,” he concludes.