French start-ups PASQAL and Qubit Pharmaceuticals have partnered with the Unitary Fund to win the Wellcome Trust’s “Quantum for Bio” program. The project aims to design a new quantum algorithm to accelerate drug discovery, which will be implemented on PASQAL’s quantum computers. The consortium will receive $4.5 million in funding over 30 months. The Quantum for Bio program aims to accelerate the use of quantum computing in healthcare, with applications expected to benefit from the arrival of quantum computers within 3-5 years. The project will involve designing an algorithm to predict the reactivity of proteins in an aqueous environment, followed by numerical tests and implementation on PASQAL’s quantum computers by 2025. Announced in a press release on the 26th of September.
Quantum Computing in Healthcare: French Start-ups Collaborate with Unitary Fund
French start-ups Pasqal and Qubit Pharmaceuticals have partnered with the Unitary Fund, a non-profit organisation focused on quantum technologies, to develop an algorithm for drug discovery. This project is part of the Quantum for Bio program, an initiative by Wellcome Leap, a branch of the Wellcome Trust, which aims to accelerate the use of quantum computing in healthcare. The French consortium is one of 12 selected for the program, alongside other organisations such as NASA, Harvard University, and the University of Cambridge.
The Quantum for Bio program has allocated $4.5 million to the French consortium over a period of 30 months. The total funding for the program is $40 million, which is distributed among the selected participants. The French consortium is the only one from France to be selected for this global initiative.
The Quantum for Bio program is a significant initiative that aims to leverage the potential of quantum computing in the healthcare sector. The selected participants, including the French consortium, are expected to develop applications that will benefit from the arrival of quantum computers within the next 3-5 years.
Development of a New Quantum Algorithm for Drug Discovery
The project’s primary objective is to design a new quantum algorithm to expedite drug discovery based on small chemical molecules. The algorithm will be implemented on Pasqal’s neutral atom quantum computer. The project is planned to last 30 months and comprises three milestone phases for the funding allocation.
During the first phase, which will last one year, starting September 2023, Pasqal and Qubit Pharmaceuticals will combine their expertise to design the new algorithm. This algorithm is aimed at accurately predicting the reactivity of proteins in the presence of an aqueous environment. The Unitary Fund will contribute by introducing software optimisations and error mitigation compilation and conducting a comparative study of the algorithm’s performance on Pasqal’s analogue quantum machines versus digital machines.
The subsequent phases will involve numerical tests and the final implementation of the algorithm on Pasqal’s quantum computers in 2025. The successful completion of these phases will mark a significant advancement in the field of drug discovery.
The Potential Impact of Quantum Computing on the Pharmaceutical Industry
Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionise the pharmaceutical industry. The consortium brings together all the necessary expertise to target high-impact results for the field in the short term. The neutral atom quantum processors developed by Pasqal are expected to enable innovative solutions to be tested on full-scale problems as early as 2025.
The new algorithm will be used in the early stages of the drug discovery process – target identification and technical evaluation. The more we know about the target’s behaviour, the better we’ll be able to predict what type of molecules can interact with it. This will enable us to accelerate the next stage, namely the virtual identification of “hits” and, consequently, the development of new drugs.
Qubit Pharmaceuticals’ objective since its creation has been to halve the time needed to screen and select a candidate of interest and to optimise it; and to more than halve the investment required. The successful implementation of the new quantum algorithm will significantly contribute to achieving this objective.
Pasqal is a company that builds quantum computers from ordered neutral atoms in 2D and 3D arrays to bring a practical quantum advantage to its customers and address real-world problems. Founded in 2019, Pasqal has recently secured more than €140 million in financing.
Qubit Pharmaceuticals was founded in 2020 with the vision of co-developing, with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, new, more effective and safer drugs. The company leverages its Atlas platform to discover new drugs through simulation and molecular modelling accelerated by hybrid HPC and quantum computing.
The Unitary Fund is an independent non-profit research institute whose mission is to create a quantum technology ecosystem that benefits the most people. Founded in 2018, Unitary Fund runs a research team focused on quantum software, error mitigation, and benchmarking, as well as a community and microgrant program supporting more than 80 projects from explorers worldwide working on quantum technologies.
About Wellcome Leap
Wellcome Leap is an organisation that builds and executes bold, unconventional programs funded at scale. Founded by the Wellcome Trust in 2020 as a US non-profit with initial funding of $300 million, Leap programs target complex human health challenges to achieve breakthrough scientific and technological solutions. With an additional $335 million in funding from the Wellcome Trust, the organisation now has over half a billion dollars at work.
“Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry, and the partners in the consortium bring together all the expertise needed to target high-impact results for the field in the short term. We hope that the high level of maturity of the neutral atom quantum processors developed by PASQAL will enable innovative solutions to be tested on full-scale problems as early as 2025, permitting new innovative solutions to be applied to a large number of real-life applications as early as 2025. We would like to thank the Wellcome Leap organization for the trust placed in our project.” – Loïc Henriet, CTO of PASQAL
“We are proud to participate in this ambitious project alongside Pasqal and Unitary Fund. Our selection by Wellcome Leap confirms the excellence of French start-ups in the quantum sector. This work will accelerate drug discovery through simulation and modeling. The new algorithm is used in the early stages of the process – target identification and technical evaluation. The more we know about the target’s behavior, the better we’ll be able to predict what type of molecules can potentially interact with it. This will enable us to accelerate the next stage, namely the virtual identification of “hits” and, consequently, the development of new drugs. Qubit Pharmaceuticals’ objective since its creation has been to halve the time needed to screen and select a candidate of interest, and to optimize it; and to more than halve the investment required.” – Jean-Philip Piquemal, Co-Founder & CSO of Qubit Pharmaceuticals
Summary
French start-ups Pasqal and Qubit Pharmaceuticals, in partnership with the Unitary Fund, have been awarded $4.5 million from the Wellcome Trust’s “Quantum for Bio” programme to develop a quantum algorithm for drug discovery. The project, set to last 30 months, aims to accelerate the discovery of drugs based on small chemical molecules using Pasqal’s quantum computers, with the new algorithm expected to be implemented by 2025.
- French start-ups Pasqal and Qubit Pharmaceuticals, in partnership with the Unitary Fund, have been selected for the Wellcome Trust’s “Quantum for Bio” program.
- The consortium will receive $4.5 million in funding over 30 months to develop a new quantum algorithm for drug discovery.
- The algorithm will be implemented on Pasqal’s neutral atom quantum computers and is expected to accelerate the discovery of drugs based on small chemical molecules.
- The project will involve three milestone phases, starting in September 2023, with the algorithm’s implementation on Pasqal’s quantum computers planned for 2025.
- The consortium is the only French group selected for the program, alongside other organisations such as NASA, Harvard University, and the University of Cambridge.
- The “Quantum for Bio” program, launched by Wellcome Leap, aims to accelerate the use of quantum computing in healthcare.
- Loïc Henriet, CTO of Pasqal, and Jean-Philip Piquemal, Co-Founder & CSO of Qubit Pharmaceuticals, expressed their hopes for the project’s potential to revolutionise the pharmaceutical industry and accelerate drug discovery.
