Questions for Charles Fisher, the CEO of Unlearn.AI
Unlearn.AI, a US-based firm, is making waves in the healthcare industry by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionise clinical trials. The company, founded by biophysicist Charles Fisher, aims to decrease the average time it takes to run a clinical trial and accelerate drug discovery processes.
At the heart of Unlearn.AI's innovation is the use of digital twins, virtual replicas of patients in clinical trials. These digital twins generate simulations that predict how patients would respond to placebo or existing treatments. The long-term goal is to reduce the number of real patients needed to enroll in a trial, potentially speeding up the clinical trial process and increasing efficiency.
Unlearn.AI's methodology incorporates additional data about a disease from medical records and previously run clinical trials into the digital replicas of patients. This approach allows for more accurate and comprehensive simulations, addressing patient recruitment challenges, particularly for diseases like Alzheimer's.
The company is currently conducting retrospective and prospective studies for scientific validation, with results expected by the end of the year. They are also collaborating with a partner to run a phase 3 pivotal clinical trial using digital twins. Successfully passing a phase 3 trial could allow for FDA approval.
To ensure the reliability of their predictions, Unlearn.AI uses cross-validation, such as training the model on half of a dataset and then on the other half. This methodology helps validate the machine learning data science behind the digital twins.
Unlearn.AI has had discussions with the FDA about their approach and its application in clinical trials. The company's work, including their collaboration on Alzheimer's disease, has been published in a peer-reviewed paper in Nature Scientific Reports.
In the future, digital twins could guide patient care by simulating the effects of treatments on individuals. With an enormous amount of historical disease data available for the standard of care, including from all over the world, from previously run clinical trials and electronic medical records, the potential for Unlearn.AI's technology is vast.
However, it's worth noting that the search results do not provide information on who has tested Unlearn.AI's technology in clinical studies or for which disease. The company's approach aims to address the challenges of patient recruitment and the lengthy and costly nature of clinical trials, particularly in the area of Alzheimer's disease, which can take up to eight years and cost $500 million.
As Unlearn.AI continues to develop and refine their technology, they are poised to make a significant impact on the clinical trial landscape, potentially accelerating drug discovery and improving patient care.
