October 25, 2024
AI (& This Drug Giant) Could Save Your Life
Dear Subscriber,
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| By Michael A. Robinson |
When we spoke back on May 17, I noted that artificial intelligence was destined to make a big impact on medical science.
I even went so far as to suggest that the technology could one day save your life.
This life-saving ability was thanks to AI’s penchant for spotting problem proteins in your body, ones that can cause disease and lead to death.
It turns out, I’m not the only one who’s noticed the link between AI and these types of proteins. A trio of scientists have been studying this relationship for years …
And for their efforts, they were just awarded science’s highest honor: The Nobel Prize.
We’ll talk more about them in just a moment. First, though, consider this …
Gene therapy, the sector that encompasses using AI to spot and even fix problem proteins, is emerging fast. It’s already a $5.6 billion market. And by 2028, it’ll be worth nearly $20 billion.
Within this market, I’ve identified a company that specializes in dealing with damaged proteins …
A global leader whose stock has beaten the broader market in the past few months by 540%.
And the Award Goes to …
Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of Demis Hassabis, John Jumper or David Baker. Until earlier this month, they were hardly known outside of academic circles.
But they gained global acclaim when they were awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry for discoveries that show the potential of advanced technology — including AI — to predict the shape of proteins.
Hassabis and Jumper are affiliated with Google DeepMind, an AI research laboratory that’s part of Google. The duo used AI to predict the structure of millions of proteins.
Baker, meanwhile, hails from the University of Washington, and used computer software to invent a new protein.
There are more than 100,000 proteins in a single human cell. And more than three billion DNA base pairs that encode them all.
Simply put, that’s too much for humans to analyze and discover, especially when some diseases are caused not by a single protein ceasing to work, but by the complex interplay of several proteins together.
Finding new mutations to target is laborious work for humans —but not for AI!
AI is making data analysis and drug discovery faster, more efficient and more affordable. In other words, it’s becoming a vital part of the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, which are worth an estimated $1.2 trillion.
Perhaps that’s why one of the biggest companies in these industries has long-since realized the value — and potential — of AI …
A $1.2 Billion Bet Pays Off
The company I’m referring to is Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY).
This firm makes therapies for cancer, HIV, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hepatitis, arthritis and psychiatric disorders.
Its roots date back to the 19th century. And today, it’s a $106 billion giant — one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
Bristol-Myers may be near the forefront of your mind these days. That’s because just last month, the company received FDA approval for Cobenfy, a blockbuster drug with the potential to treat schizophrenia in adults and even symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
This drug alone could add $5 billion in annual sales.
But a few years earlier, Bristol-Myers invested $1.2 billion to enter a drug discovery collaboration with a relatively unknown AI startup called Exscientia …
Placing a sizable bet on the fact that AI could turbocharge drug development. It was a bet that was right on the money …
The Importance of Protein Degradation
You see, one area of focus for Bristol-Myers is protein degradation.
Essentially, this is a process by which proteins are naturally destroyed in a cell in order to maintain an equilibrium of proteins in the body.
Your body is constantly making and remaking proteins, while also removing ones that have become inactive or mutated. When a cell is unable to degrade certain proteins, they can accumulate and cause diseases like cancer.
Current approved medicines target only 3% of proteins encoded — a mere fraction of ones inside the body.
But Bristol-Myers is the only company to successfully develop and commercialize protein degrader agents, new options to degrade proteins in the body and keep people healthier for longer.
Bristol-Myers has multiple types of investigational protein degraders. But it’s using AI to accelerate the expansion of its platform to develop new medicines at record paces.
Specifically, it’s using AI-centric advanced computational models to examine the vast amounts of data generated to discover new disease targets and accelerate the discovery of novel degrader molecules.
When these molecules move to the clinic, data and predictive technologies inform patient selection, improve trial design and increase operational efficiencies to get new potential treatment options to patients faster.
An Amazing Stock Rally
After a significant post-Covid slump that slammed a lot of pharmaceutical firms, Bristol’s stock has recovered nicely.
Since bottoming out back on July 5, it’s gained more than 33%, compared with 4.1% returns from the S&P 500. That means that our AI-centric protein company beat the broader market by a whopping 715%.
That margin of victory isn’t likely to hold indefinitely. But even a fraction of those returns would still see us outperform the market.
We’ll get a better sense of how the company is executing against its plan when it reports earnings late next week.
If it misses forecasts, the stock could get hurt. But remember, we’re investing for the long haul. So, a price decline would spell a great chance to pick up shares at a discount.
Add it up, and you can see why the confluence of AI and proteins is so potentially profitable.
And not to boast too loudly, but you literally heard it here first.
So, be sure and check back with me for more ways to see how tech, especially AI, is handing us market-crushing opportunities.
Best,
Michael A. Robinson
P.S. You might not know it from what you’ve seen me write about so far, but I was in early on Bitcoin. I first recommended it in 2013.
My colleague and crypto expert Juan Villaverde says another such opportunity is fast approaching. He says a soon-to-open “Golden Window” — that only comes around once every four years — has already produced gains of 19x, 23x and even 93x.
I urge you to claim your spot for next week’s crypto event on Tuesday, Oct. 29, at 2 p.m. Eastern. You can do so for free here.
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