Poolbeg Pharma (POLB ), a clinical stage infectious disease company, said it has successfully identified potential new drug candidates from its Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) AI programme with OneThree Biotech.
Poolbeg and OneThree initiated their collaboration in February 2022 and have since worked to build a tailored AI approach that leverages Poolbeg's RSV human challenge trial data in order to identify disease-relevant biological pathways and potential drug targets.
Having already discovered multiple drug targets, Poolbeg and OneThree have now identified a number of promising drug candidates to bring forward to lab-based validation, to determine the full potential of these assets.
Poolbeg said it has prioritised compounds with existing Phase 1 clinical data which, if successfully validated, could be repositioned as novel treatments for RSV infection. Candidates with solid safety and pharmacodynamic data in humans are well-positioned to rapidly enter a clinical trial to generate early human efficacy data for RSV, Poolbeg explained.
Jeremy Skillington, PhD, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma commented: "In the past few months, RSV has been sending children to hospital at alarming rates in the United States and Europe. As paediatric units fill beyond capacity, and our healthcare systems contend with a 'tripledemic' of RSV, influenza and SARS-CoV-2, the need for better treatments has never been so urgent.
We're impressed with the quality of work executed so far with OneThree leveraging their AI expertise to present new drug potential candidates from our unique human challenge trial data which Poolbeg will now optimise for further development in RSV, the only one of the three main respiratory illnesses for which there are not yet any approved vaccines and where treatment options are limited."
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Today marks an important milestone in Poolbeg's collaboration with OneThree. The two companies joined forces back in February to leverage Poolbeg's RSV human challenge trial data and OneThree ATLANTIS AI-driven platform to identify drug candidates for RSV.
Last month, the two companies announced the discovery of new drug targets for RSV, and today have presented actionable results in the form of drug candidates that are being sent to the lab for validation. What has been achieved in only 9 months is impressive, and a testament to the power of AI-assisted drug discovery.
RSV, which inflames the smallest airways of the lungs, sends an average of 58,000-80,000 children under the age of 5 to hospital each year in the US alone, according to the US CDC. RSV can also be dangerous for adults over the age of 65, resulting in around 177,000 hospitalisations per year in the US. Effective treatment options for RSV are currently lacking, hence Poolbeg's aggressive schedule to present pharma with viable options.
Poolbeg's capital-light model is nonstandard as it aims to develop and bring products through to early human proof of concept in the clinic, then partner with large 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.
Indeed, Poolbeg is now progressing two AI programmes - in addition to its collaboration with OneThree, Poolbeg has partnered with CytoReason to identify treatments for influenza, with initial results expected in 2Q 2023.
Poolbeg remains very well funded with a cash balance of £18.9m on 30 June 2022, enabling it to jump on high-value opportunities and quickly fund development. The company's long development pipeline will continue to drive value for shareholders in 2023.
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