Trailblazing AI start-up looks to healthy future with expert advisory board
The four-year-old biotech company working to speed up drug development through innovative use of AI, has announced the formation of its new SAB, which includes four key names: Justin Siegel, Ph.D., David Chernoff, M.D., J Bruce German, Ph.D. and Luke O’Neill, Ph.D.
Emmet Browne, chief executive officer at Nuritas, said: “We are delighted to have attracted some of the world’s leading experts in drug discovery, metabolism, immunology, food for health, proteomics and molecular diagnostics to support Nuritas as we advance our AI platform and bioactive peptide discovery to address the world’s growing healthcare needs.
“The formation of our SAB serves to further strengthen Nuritas’s unique approach to discover peptide-based therapies with unmatched speed and accuracy.”
The Irish biotech firm combines DNA analysis and AI to predict, unlock and validate peptides from natural sources. It gained funding from Irish rock legends Bono and The Edge in December 2016 and gained a further €16 million in its first round of funding through Cultivian Sandbox Ventures in December last year. Browne, an ex-Nestle regional president, said at that time that the company would use the cash-injection to scale up, triple the workforce and generally deal better with the “huge amount of customer demand that is building up for what we do”.
Bioactive peptides are known to play a role in managing diabetes and many other areas but Browne says Nuritas can identify peptides ten times faster and 500 times more accurately than traditional discovery methods.
The firm licensed one of its already-discovered peptides to the German chemical company BASF in 2017 to become part of an anti-inflammatory sports nutrition ingredient planned for launch at Supply Side West in Lasa Vegas next month.
Nuritas also announced a partnership with Nestlé earlier this year. The Swiss food and beverage giant said it would develop and validate the efficacy of Nuritas’ discoveries within target application areas.
Key name backgrounds
Justin Siegel, Ph.D., is an associate professor of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular medicine in the Genome Center at University of California.
David Chernoff, M.D., is the chief medical officer of SetPoint Medical, a clinical-stage biomedical technology company developing bioelectronic therapy for chronic inflammatory disease.
J Bruce German, Ph.D., is food science and technology director at the Foods for Health Institute at the University of California.
Luke O’Neill, Ph.D., is the chair of biochemistry at Trinity College Dublin where he leads the Inflammation Research Group. He was recognised by Clarivates/Thompson Reuters as one of the world’s most influential scientists.
