The world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies have teamed up to back AION Labs, a biotech innovation space. Creating medical treatments and preparing them for actual use is a very time consuming, and expensive process. Through artificial intelligence, AION Labs aims to develop technologies that will disrupt drug discovery and improve personalized treatment options. Official partners of AION Labs include AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Merck, Teva, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and the Israel Biotech Fund.
“The launch of AION Labs will provide an opportunity for the healthcare and life sciences industry to uncover new ways to reduce the time and cost for discovery, facilitate open collaboration and interoperability, and ultimately improve patients’ health outcomes;” explained Dan Sheeran, Director of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Amazon Web Services.
BioMed X, an independent biomedical research institute based in Heidelberg, Germany will also play a key role in supporting the AI-powered lab’s venture creation model. AION Labs plans to invest in startups focused on eliminating animal experiments, accelerating treatment discovery, and boosting therapeutics (precision-based diagnosis and care).
AION Labs was created after the Israel Innovation Authority first announced plans (in 2020) to support life science initiatives. The lab’s headquarters will be located in Rehovot Science Park, near the historic Weizmann Institute of Sciences.