Aitia‘s Gemini Digital Twins will help identify subpopulations of patients who could respond favorably to Servier’s LRRK2 in development treatment
Suresnes (France), 08 January 2024 – Servier, an independent international pharmaceutical group, and Aitia, the leader in the application of causal AI and Digital Twins, have strengthened today their partnership by signing a new contract focused on collaboration in neuroscience. The aim of this cooperation is to leverage Aitia’s Gemini Digital Twins to identify patients most likely to respond positively to Servier’s Leucine-Rich-Repeat-Kinase 2 inhibitor (LRRK2i) in development treatment for Parkinson’s disease.
Parkinson’s disease is the second most frequent neurodegenerative illness, surpassed only by Alzheimer ‘s disease1, and it affects more than 10 million people in the world2. This neurological disease causes slow and progressive degeneration of neurons. For patients, the symptoms are multiple: motor problems such as tremors and muscle stiffness, mental health and language disorders, and sleep imbalances, as well as pain.
Under the terms of the collaboration, Servier will combine data from its previous work in the field of neuroscience and Parkinson’s disease with Aitia’s expertise in AI-enabled drug discovery. Aitia’s Gemini Digital Twins, computational representations of disease that capture genetic and molecular interactions that causally drive clinical and physiological outcomes, will simulate the mechanisms of action of LRRK2 inhibitor treatment to highlight biomarkers in patients. Ultimately, these discoveries may make it possible to define subpopulations of patients who will respond favorably to LRRK2 inhibition.
“This new collaboration with Aitia highlights Servier’s ambition to potentially provide innovative solutions to patients with high unmet medical needs. I am confident that by combining scientific innovation with the power of digital technologies, such as Aitia’s Gemini Digital Twins, we may be able to better understand the biology of Parkinson’s disease and transform our drug discovery process in the field of neuroscience. This approach could allow us to provide increasingly personalized solutions to patients affected by this pathology,” says Ross Jeggo, Global Head of Neuroscience and Immuno-inflammation Therapeutic Area in the Research and Development department at Servier. “I look forward to discussing our approach to research and collaboration in neuroscience at the upcoming J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference next week.”
“We are honored to continue to work closely with the team at Servier and harness the power of causal AI, human multi-omics data, and our Gemini Digital Twins to potentially help develop new medicines that can have a meaningful impact on the lives of patients with Parkinson’s Disease and their families” said Jean-Michel Gries, President and COO at Aitia.
As part of its Servier 2030 strategy, the Group aims to be a player in the neuroscience space, relying on a significant investment in R&D, a patient-centric approach, and the development of targeted therapies. In August 2022, Servier and Aitia signed a first partnership aimed at strengthening the understanding of the biological mechanisms of multiple myeloma (MM, a bone marrow cancer), and thus advancing research in this area. Then, in May 2023, the collaboration expanded with the signing of a multi-year agreement for drug discovery and simulation in pancreatic cancer using AI.
About Servier
Founded to serve health, Servier is a global pharmaceutical group governed by a Foundation that aspires to have a meaningful social impact, both for patients and for a sustainable world. With its unique governance model, it can fully serve its vocation with a long-term vision: being committed to therapeutic progress to serve patient needs. The 21,400 employees of the Group are committed to this shared vocation, source of inspiration every day. As a world leader in cardiology, Servier’s ambition is to become a focused and innovative player in oncology by targeting hard-to-treat cancers. That is why the Group allocates over 50% of its R&D budget to developing targeted and innovative therapies in oncology. Neuroscience and immuno-inflammatory diseases are the future growth drivers. In these areas, Servier is focused on a limited number of diseases in which accurate patient profiling makes it possible to offer a targeted therapeutic response through precision medicine. To promote access to quality care for all at a lower cost, the Group also offers a range of quality generic drugs covering most pathologies, relying on strong brands in France, Eastern Europe, Brazil and Nigeria. In all these areas, the Group includes the patient voice at each stage of the life cycle of a medicine.Headquartered in France, Servier relies on a strong geographical footprint in over 150 countries and achieved a revenue of €4.9 billion in 2022.
For more information: servier.com
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About Aitia
Aitia is the leader in the development and application of Causal AI and Digital Twins to discover the next generation of therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and Oncology. By leveraging the convergence of multi-omic patient data, high-performance computing, and causal learning and AI, Aitia is revealing the hidden circuitry of human biology to identify novel targets driving disease and focused patient recruitment for clinical development. Aitia has translated those insights into its Gemini Digital Twins (computational representations of disease), which the company is using to discover new breakthrough therapies. Aitia’s partners include six of the top ten pharmaceutical companies, leading academic research and medical centers, medical societies, leading multi-omic data companies, and patient advocacy groups globally. For more information, please visit aitiabio.com