From Latvia to Building Insilico

We chat about longevity with Alex Zhavoronkov, CEO and founder of the artificial intelligence (AI) specialist Insilico Medicine.

Born in Latvia, Alex founded Insilico in 2014, with the company raising a huge $110M Series E round this year.

Alex gives us a tour of Insilico’s sprawling pipeline, a blunt rundown of the competitive landscape in AI drug development, and explains how Insilico is navigating the huge challenges faced by longevity-focused startups.

⭐️ ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Alex founded Insilico in 2014 after serving in senior roles at ATI Technologies, NeuroGNeuroinformatics, and the Biogerontology Research Foundation.

With an academic background in biomedicine and computer technology, he has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, and has bachelor’s degrees from Queen's University, Canada, a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, US, and a PhD from Moscow State University, Russia.

🔗 LINKS MENTIONED

• Insilico Medicine’s website: https://insilico.com/
• Insilico Medicine’s phase 2a results: https://insilico.com/blog/1112
• Insilico Medicine’s Series E round: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/insilico-medicine-secures-110-million-series-e-financing-to-advance-ai-driven-drug-discovery-innovation-302401040.html
• Thomas Clozel, Owkin | What does AI Biotech really mean | E10: https://flot.bio/episode/thomas-clozel-ai-biotech/

📜 TRANSCRIPTRead the full transcript here:

https://flot.bio/episode/alex-zhavoronkov-insilico-medicine-ai-drug-development-longevity/

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⏰ TIMESTAMPS

• Intro [00:00:00]
• [00:01:43] Longevity: work, romances and bromances
• [00:07:56] Survival in the graveyard of longevity drugs
• [00:14:57] Insilico Medicine comes of age
• [00:23:12] Landmark efficacy in AI drug program
• [00:28:15] A sprawling pipeline for Insilico Medicine
• [00:36:34] Small molecules vs biologics
• [00:40:57] Competition and benchmarks
• [00:52:20] Alex Zhavoronkov on longevity myths