Valinor and Renew Partner on Neurology Data
Valinor Discovery and Renew Biotechnologies launched a partnership to generate a large-scale clinical multi-omics dataset for developing neurological disease models. The collaboration will integrate high-resolution data with predictive multimodal machine learning. The goal is to support biopharmaceutical decision-making in the field of neurology.
- Valinor Discovery, which specializes in creating advanced machine learning models for clinical drug development, has raised $13 million in seed funding. The company's focus is on training models with patient-derived multi-omic and clinical assay data to predict therapeutic outcomes. - Renew Biotechnologies operates as a holding company that acquires and develops biotechnology, with a focus on next-generation sequencing diagnostics for conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS. The company and its subsidiaries, like Wasatch BioLabs, have completed over 100 research projects and established major partnerships with organizations including Agilent and Oxford Nanopore Technologies. - The collaboration will leverage multi-omics data, which integrates various data types such as genomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics to create a more comprehensive understanding of complex neurological diseases. This approach helps in identifying novel biomarkers and accelerating drug discovery by analyzing the intricate molecular networks associated with these conditions. - Under the terms of the partnership, the generated datasets will be jointly owned. However, Valinor will be the exclusive AI partner with the authority to train predictive models using this data. - Valinor's platform is offered through a hosted interface developed with Latch Bio, providing no-code access to its generative models and workflows for biopharmaceutical developers. The company does not develop its own therapeutics but focuses on empowering pharmaceutical partners. - Renew Biotechnologies, founded in 2022 and based in Provo, Utah, has developed proprietary DNA sequencing technologies like direct Whole Methylome Sequencing (dWMS). In November 2024, the company received the Biotech Breakthrough Award for "DNA Sequencing Innovation of the Year." - Valinor's co-founders are CEO Joshua Pacini and Chief Scientific Officer Zhanel Nugmanova. The company has also established collaborations with the Computational Health Center at Helmholtz Munich and the Montgomery Lab at Stanford to develop industry benchmarks for its predictive models. - The application of AI and machine learning in neurology is a growing field aimed at moving from a "one-size-fits-all" model to personalized medicine by tailoring therapies to individual patient profiles based on their unique molecular and clinical data. This partnership is part of a broader trend of using AI to analyze large-scale biomedical data to improve the lengthy and expensive process of drug discovery for central nervous system diseases.
