The company will utilise Qureight’s AI technology to undergo studies across a variety of complex lung diseases.
Qureight, a company focused on data analytics, has entered into a partnership with AstraZeneca.
Under the terms of the agreement, AstraZeneca will utilise Qureight’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology and proprietary platform to undergo studies across a variety of complex lung diseases. In doing so, the pharma giant will be able to leverage imaging data analytics and incorporate AI models to improve its understanding of how patients with rare lung conditions respond to novel treatments.
Qureight’s cloud platform analyses CT scans, blood biomarkers and clinical results from patients with complex lung and heart conditions. In turn, the technology produces models using real-world and clinical trial data during the evaluation process.
At present, many of the conditions in question, including pulmonary hypertension and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), currently have very few therapy options, in addition to poor survival rates. Qureight was founded by clinicians and researchers in Cambridge in 2018, with the specific aim of addressing this unmet need.
Professor Maria Belvisi, head of research and early development, respiratory and immunology, biopharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca, expressed excitement about the emerging partnership: “The collaboration with Qureight supports AstraZeneca’s aim to harness data and technology enabling our scientists to push the boundaries of science and deliver life-changing medicines to patients.”
She added: “Qureight’s AI technology allows us to investigate outcomes in multiple respiratory diseases, helping us to create new endpoints and improve patient selection for clinical trials in diseases such as Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.”
Dr Muhunthan Thillai, chief executive officer at Qureight, reflected: “The multi-year collaboration announced today is an important validation of our technology stack and builds on our existing partnership with AstraZeneca, a leader in respiratory care.
“We look forward to working closely with AstraZeneca in analysing data from patients with the fibrotic scarring lung disease IPF and other complex conditions.”
Recently, at the American Thoracic Society meeting in Washington, DC, Qureight shared research results jointly with AstraZeneca. The findings highlighted how image-based AI models could be integrated with clinical models to capture data at a single time point in the IPF patient journey while also predicting 12-month mortality signals with high accuracy.