Accenture invests in Turbine’s AI for biopharma research
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES — Accenture has made a strategic investment in Turbine, a company specializing in predictive simulation, to advance the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cell simulations in biopharma research and development. The terms of the investment were not disclosed.
This investment, made through Accenture Ventures, aims to expand Turbine’s capabilities and help global biopharma companies uncover hidden biological insights that can accelerate drug development.
Bridging the gap with Turbine’s Simulated Cells
Turbine’s core technology, the Simulated Cell platform, utilizes machine learning to model molecular interactions within and around human cells. This enables virtual experiments at an unprecedented scale, revealing mechanisms that drive diseases and therapeutic responses.
“Turbine’s Simulated Cells can be engineered at scale to represent the heterogeneity of complex human disease better than currently available wet lab experimental models, which are inherently biased towards representing certain disease types and hardly scalable,” said Szabolcs Nagy, co-founder and CEO of Turbine.
“By tapping into Accenture’s expertise, we hope to expand our market reach and augment our simulation platform in order to benefit the whole biopharma industry by ensuring that the next experiment is always the correct one.”
Turbine’s platform is already being validated with leading pharmaceutical companies to identify promising drug targets and patient populations likely to benefit from specific therapies. This includes collaboration with companies like AstraZeneca, Ono Pharmaceutical, Cancer Research Horizons, and Bayer. The platform helps to identify combination therapies and reveal potential drugs that might fail in clinical trials despite initial lab success.
AI-powered insights for biopharma and drug discovery
Nagy highlighted the need for advanced tools in drug discovery.
“Since most unsolved complex diseases are heterogenous, progress in utilizing AI for drug discovery is hindered by ethical and technological limitations in sourcing deep and diverse ground truth data,” he said.
“Advanced technology and digital capabilities are clearly becoming substantial differentiators in the biopharma industry, and the future of drug discovery will be powered by AI,” said Tom Lounibos, global lead of Accenture Ventures.
“Our investment reflects our commitment to supporting technology and digital capabilities that drive innovation in AI-based drug discovery, all with the goal of providing more effective treatments and enhancing patient care,” said Petra Jantzer, senior managing director and global lead of Accenture Life Sciences.
Turbine is the latest addition to Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, an investment program focused on disruptive enterprise technologies.
In January, Accenture also invested $2 million into clinical trial design firm QuantHealth to accelerate its drug development initiatives.
Accenture ranked #1 in the OA500 2024, an objective index of the world’s top 500 outsourcing companies. This is the second year the company clinched the index’s top spot.
