Could AI, the hottest topic in science and technology, bring about the new and successful hair growth treatments we have been waiting for? We may find out sooner than you think.

Last month, while reading an interesting article on the evolution of drug discovery, I was pleasantly surprised to learn about new research being done in hair growth medicine. The article I’m referring to is titled “Revolutionizing Drug Discovery And Delivery” and written by Peter Diamandis MD, an entrepreneur in the biotech and space exploration industries. In his blog, Peter described a new company, Insilico Medicine, which is on pace to completely change the games of drug and drug target discovery.

Insilico Medicine was founded by Alex Zhavoronkov PhD, a computer scientist who transitioned into the field of biophysics. Zhavoronkov began working on the Insilico project in 2014 and he says it took about 3 years of dedicated work for his technology to become refined and usable. According to Diamandis, Insilico’s artificial intelligence engine processes millions of data samples to identify signature characteristics of specific diseases and then identifies the most promising treatment targets for the diseases. The technology then identifies the best suited molecules to hit the targets of the diseases. Zhavoronkov describes Insilico’s impact on pharmacology succinctly, “AI allows us to do with fifty people what a typical drug company does with five thousand.”

I could hardly believe after reading about how great and revolutionary this drug discovery technology was that the first application it would be put towards was treating hair loss. Here’s an excerpt from the article to give you an idea of what Insilico is up to (I highly recommend reading the full article, by the way):

“The results have turned what was once a decade-long war into a month-long skirmish. In late 2018, for example, Insilico was generating novel molecules in fewer than forty-six days, and this included not just the initial discovery, but also the synthesis of the drug and its experimental validation in computer simulations.

Right now, they’re using the system to hunt down new drugs for cancer, aging, fibrosis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, diabetes, and many others. The first drug to result from this work, a treatment for hair loss, is slated to start Phase I trials by the end of 2020.”

People who are seeking hair cures have got to savor this one. What are the odds that after you stumble upon the most advanced drug discovery company in the world, you then find out that the first drug they are trialing is a treatment for hair loss? 😄😉

We are fortunate to have been given this sneak peak by Peter Diamandis, as Insilico’s website currently does not list a pipeline or mention the androgenic alopecia program yet. The source of this info, Diamandis, is rock solid and I would not be surprised if he is also an investor in Insilico Medicine. You can hear Alex Zhavoronkov describe Diamandis as “his greatest inspiration in healthcare” at around the 27:23 mark in this podcast interview.

The image above is a screengrab of a lecture given by Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov at Exponential Medicine 2017. The conference was organized by Singularity University, a company founded by Peter Diamandis, of all people. Here, the image provides a rudimentary visual explanation of Insilico Medicine’s drug discovery process, click to enlarge.

While we don’t know the specifics about this molecule yet, it seems that we should be in for a treat based on the prowess of Insilico’s technology. Imagine being able to create the perfect Wnt activator molecule or the perfect androgen receptor blocker. And to think, really, this should only be the beginning of it all.