"Promomed" talked about the use of AI for the development of cancer drugs

Kolesnikov: AI reduces the development time for cancer drugs to two years

An employee at the Promomed Group plant. Archive photo

The use of genetic technologies, artificial intelligence and bioinformatics will reduce the development time of drugs for the treatment of cancer to two years, Ivan Kolesnikov, director of digital transformation at Promomed Group, told RIA Novosti.

"To reduce the cost by reducing the volume of dead-end wet and preclinical studies in the process of drug development, we use genetic technologies, bioinformatics and artificial intelligence. This reduces the development time to two years, especially when expanding the practice of using genetic information from tumor tissues," he said.

According to Kolesnikov, artificial intelligence also helps in analyzing genetic information and modeling target proteins using modern neural and bioinformatic methods. In addition, it searches for epitopes and designs the structure of the mRNA vaccine.

The use of AI at the early development stage makes it possible to select a candidate molecule faster and more efficiently, so that researchers can avoid screening hundreds of molecules and focus on the main leading compounds.

"At the stage of PoC (early development, or screening), the capabilities of artificial intelligence in molecular docking are actively used. This allows us to evaluate the biological activity and physico-chemical characteristics of the studied compounds in silico with high prognostic significance," said Kolesnikov.

Promomed specializes in drugs used to fight infections (antiviral and antibiotics), in the field of endocrinology, neurology, oncology and general therapy. The company's product portfolio includes more than 350 medicines, 80 percent of which are included in the list of vital and essential products. The main production site of the company is the Biochemist plant in Saransk.

In June, on the sidelines of SPIEF 2025, Promomed signed an agreement with Sberbank and the AI Institute, according to which the participants will jointly develop a special platform that provides an integrated approach to the use of AI solutions in pharmaceutical companies.

1. RIA News