Notice of Publication of Article on the Development of AI with Tohoku University through Open Innovation

Renascience has been developing multiple software as medical devices utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) in collaboration with Tohoku University. We are pleased to announce that an interview about the future direction of AI useful for medical care was published in the January 20, 2023  issue of Kagaku Shimbun (The Science News).

The latest progress of science and technology is remarkable, and the medical care has been undergoing major changes. From traditional pharmaceuticals based on small molecules to biopharmaceuticals such as antibody drugs, nucleic acid drugs, and gene therapy, therapeutic modalities are diversifying, and furthermore new medical solutions are emerging that utilize information-related technologies such as AI and big data. Therefore, in addition to chemistry and biology, a combination of engineering and information science and technology is necessary, and open innovation through the fusion of different fields becomes increasingly important to seek medical innovation.

It is an important theme with great potential to leverage AI in the medical field. Though the participants in the research and development of the medical AI, including physicians, medical institutions, IT vendors, and pharmaceutical and health tech companies, play important roles in the theme, they all face their own challenges.

In January 2022, we opened the Tohoku University Renascience Open Innovation Lab (TREx) in the Medicinal Hub of Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine to accelerate our research and development, including AI-based medical solutions.

Renascience’s employees, including the researchers, are stationed at TREx to acquire new seeds and expand collaborative research through communication with physicians, researchers, and business people who visit TREx. More than half of our new development pipelines comes from collaboration with Tohoku University, and in the short period since TREx was launched, we have steadily acquired new drug seeds and new pipelines of multiple software as medical devices (AI). We discuss similar collaborations with other universities and plan to build an ecosystem that will lead to the efficient commercialization of AI in the medical field. Such collaborations will further accelerate our research and development, and result in the acquisition of more seeds.

Currently, TREx takes an initiative to conduct multiple AI research and development projects simultaneously across various medical fields.

We will accelerate the research and development of AI to expand our AI pipelines to about 20 over the next few years.

The Company will promote open innovation to address issues of medical or social importance, such as aging-related diseases (cancer, diabetes, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases) and women’s and children’s diseases (important in association with the declining birthrate).

Please see the following link for the article in the Science News.