Life sciences company brings corporate headquarters to Lawrenceville

A drug development company is sinking its roots further into the region, moving its corporate headquarters to Lawrenceville after expanding its laboratory in the neighborhood.

Predictive Oncology Inc., a publicly traded company that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to accelerate oncology drug discovery, recently expanded its footprint to nearly 20,000 feet of space on 43rd Street.

“This move reinforces the company’s commitment to growth, solidifying our footprint and expanding the laboratory and center for artificial intelligence in Pittsburgh,” said Raymond Vennare, CEO and board chairman. “Our company not only employs some of the world’s leading scientists in their respective fields, but has access to a critical mass of talent, many of whom were drawn to the region by Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Medical Center.”

The location on 43rd Street will consolidate two other facilities in Palo Alto, Calif., and Salem, Mass., according to Vennare. About 38 employees work at the Lawrenceville site.

Vennare said the goal is to make the drug discovery process for cancer faster and more accurate.

“The problem in the development of drugs is that it takes a very long time and it costs an excruciatingly large amount of money,” said Vennare. “We’re talking about anywhere between 12 to 15 years and $2.5 billion dollars to get a drug to market. Most people don’t know that 95% of all of the drugs that go into development fail, and some of them fail before they even go into development.”

It takes identifying a molecule, compound, or biomarker that a pharmaceutical company thinks will work in treatment. Predictive uses artificial intelligence to evaluate the likelihood that the target is going to make it through the phase one preclinical stage.

If there’s a probability that is going to work, it could save minimally three years and $10 million, he said.

Noting that 95% of the drugs that enter clinical trials do not make it, Predictive’s goal is to improve that rate.

“By just 2%, it means the pharmaceutical industry will save approximately $50 billion over the next 10 years,” Vennare said. “That’s how big this is. But more importantly, it gets drugs that work in the hands of clinicians sooner so that patients can be treated.”

The global life sciences market was valued at $144.08 billion in 2022 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 10.8% from 2023 to 2030, according to Grand View Research. That growth is mainly due to rapid advancements in the tools available to those companies.

“Moreover, investments and funding for the development of advanced therapeutics along with continuous demand for novel medicine and treatments due to rising incidence of diseases such as cancer, kidney and thyroid disorders, and diabetes will drive the market,” Grand View found.

Vennare said that the company could be adding to its ranks in the near future.

“Depending on how quickly we close on the contracts that we have in the pipeline, we could add up to 22 people within 12 months,” Vennare said, noting that Lawrenceville’s proximity to CMU, Pitt and UPC was a big draw for the company.

“It was a very conscious decision to do this,” said Vennare.

The company was built on a predecessor in life sciences, Precision Therapeutics, which was founded by the late Dr. Paul Kornblith. That company later merged with Helomics Corporation, and that was acquired by Predictive Oncology in 2019.

The company owes “an equal debt of gratitude to the work of Drs. Robert Murphy and Josh Kangas from Carnegie Mellon University. It was there that a highly precise, specific and robust AI/ML engine was first developed, and later commercialized by Quantitative Medicine,” according to the company. Quantitative Medicine was also acquired by Predictive Oncology.