Poolbeg partners with AI company on RSV project

Infectious disease company Poolbeg Pharma has signed an agreement with the artificial company OneThree Biotech to work on a project to identify new drug targets and treatments for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).

The project will see OneThree Biotech apply its AI analysis tools to identify drug assets which target immune-response pathways and which also a higher probability of clinical success, and which have the potential to prevent and / or treat infectious diseases.

The analysis will prioritise drugs with existing Phase I safety data, reducing spend and risk, which can feed into Poolbeg's rapid, capital light clinical development strategy and its expanding pipeline of assets.

OneThree Biotech’s platform integrates chemical, biological, and clinical data with computational tools to answer complex questions surrounding disease biology and drug discovery.

OneThree will work closely with Poolbeg's scientific team to build a tailored AI analysis model which can leverage the unique insights of human challenge trial data to identify disease-relevant cell signalling pathways which could lead to novel drug targets. OneThree will receive milestone payments based on candidate development and royalties on the sale of products derived from this partnership.

Poolbeg's lead asset POLB 001, which is progressing towards its first human challenge trial in June 2022, was identified using such disease progression data. However, by utilising AI the company aims to identify more targets, quicker and more cost efficiently than previously possible without this technology. 

RSV is a contagious virus that affects the respiratory tract of children and at-risk older adults; in severe cases, it can cause pneumonia and other life-threatening breathing difficulties. RSV affects an estimated 50-million people annually, leading to 4 million global hospitalisations and up to 74,500 in-hospital deaths in children under the age of 5 years. An estimated 45% of these cases and deaths occur in new-born infants under the age of 6 months.

Poolbeg entered a partnership with Eurofins Genomics in October 2021 to complete RNA sequencing of Poolbeg's RSV disease progression samples from human challenge trials. This work was a key step in Poolbeg advancing its AI analysis programme. This RSV discovery dataset has been specifically designed for incorporation into OneThree's AI platform. The data sets within this project will leverage up to 140Gb of biological data per subject spread over baseline healthy measurements and the course of infection which is expected to unveil unprecedented insights.

Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma, said: "OneThree Biotech's AI analysis tools will allow us to break new ground in data-driven drug discovery, by allowing us to evaluate and interrogate human challenge trial data like never before. This is a key part of our growth strategy, as we'll be able to identify and develop drugs in a more time and cost effective manner, compared with the traditional biotech model. It will enable us to identify potential new treatments which have a higher probability of clinical success and which can feed into our rapidly expanding pipeline in-line with our capital light model. 

This will be the first time that AI tools will be used to analyse RSV human challenge trial disease progression data, which illustrates the significance of this deal as well as Poolbeg's innovative model. We look forward to updating the market on the outputs from this cutting-edge AI analysis in due course."

Neel S. Madhukar, co-founder and CEO of OneThree Biotech, added: "At OneThree our mission has always been to unlock new therapeutic opportunities by understanding biology on a deeper level. The ability to combine our AI platform with the data and expertise from Poolbeg Pharma will enable just that, and create an opportunity to make meaningful progress in the treatment of infectious diseases."