Poolbeg Pharma announces AI breakthrough yielding multiple RSV drug targets
( ), a clinical stage infectious disease company, announced this morning a breakthrough in its AI Programme with partner OneThree Biotech thorugh the discovery of novel drug targets for treatment of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).
OneThree used its clinically validated AI model to identify the novel drug targets using Poolbeg's RSV human challenge trial data. The identification of these drug targets now allows the final stage of the programme to commence, involving identification of small molecule inhibitors to effectively treat RSV.
This is significant for Poolbeg as the molecule inhibitors include a range of targets for which there are known drugs with existing Phase 1 safety and tolerability data. Prioritisation of compounds with existing Phase 1 data aligns with Poolbeg's capital light model, as these compounds have extensive nonclinical and clinical data allowing smooth transition to early human efficacy trials.
The final stage of the project will utilise OneThree's proprietary ATLANTIS AI platform to identify the drugs that are most likely to work aginst the disease targets. While selection of drugs is typically a long process, using an existing AI model can speed it up dramatically to a matter of weeks.
Results of the final stage are therefore expected by the end of 2022.
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This breakthrough exemplifies the effectiveness of AI models for identifying disease targets. Poolbeg and OneThree's partnership has produced a remarkable result in a short period of time that represents the first time AI has been used to identify disease targets in RSV.
Poolbeg is now progressing two AI programmes with the aim of identifying drug targets and treatments for RSV and influenza, two diseases which affect significant numbers of individuals globally.
RSV is considered a significant public health threat, affecting c. 50 million people annually with 4 million global hospitalisations and an estimated 100,000 deaths in children under the age of 5 years.
While traditional drug design focuses on identifying molecules that can bind with specific targets, Poolbeg and OneThree's approach utilises AI models that allow for complex disease signatures underlying each drug target to be considered during drug selection. This significantly speeds up the process of identifying effective drug candidates, in this case bringing the programme's expected completion to end of 2022.
AI-accelerated drug discovery integrates well into Poolbeg's capital-light model. Poolbeg's model is nonstandard as it aims to develop and bring products through to early human proof of concept in the clinic, then partner with pharma and biotech companies that continue the pipeline to production and distribution. Thus, Poolbeg profits from the relatively inexpensive human trial process, now enhanced with their partners' AI analysis, and then exits at the scale-up stage.
Through the analysis of unique human challenge trial data gathered by hVIVO, Poolbeg and OneThree Biotech have rapidly identified unique drug targets and can now commence the final stage of the programme to identify effective drug candidates to treat RSV. This is the first time that human challenge trial data has been analysed using AI and the results generated will identify drugs that are most likely to be efficacious against the identified disease targets with clean safety profiles in RSV patients. Selection of drugs is traditionally a long and extensive process however, by using an existing AI model this process can be completed in weeks.
Poolbeg has a rapidly growing pipeline of infectious disease products. Poolbeg's current flagship is POLB 001, a severe influenza candidate, which the company aims to out-license to US and/or European pharma and biotech partners, targeting a significant upfront payment plus royalties. POLB 001 should begin to generate value shortly after completion of trials by end of 2022.
Since the outbreak of Covid-19, infectious disease has become one of the fastest growing pharma markets and is expected to exceed $250bn by 2025. With its strong cash position of £18.9m as of 30 June 2022, Poolbeg is successfully targeting this growing market.
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