Kurite aims to narrow racial disparities in lung disease treatment

Cambridge medical technology company Curiet is working with University Hospital Birmingham (UHB) to ensure that its artificial intelligence (AI) model for treating complex lung disease reflects the UK population diversity, which is unique in its kind. It is the first research project of

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a type of lung disease that currently has a worse survival time than most cancers.

“IPF is mainly found in minority patients, but clinical trials of blockbuster drugs carried out in the US and Europe have been carried out mainly in white men,” says Muhunthan, consultant physician and CEO and co-founder of the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge Thillai. Oksaid in an interview with Digital Health.

Kurite has used AI tools to reveal insights from existing IPF patient data that could help enhance the lives of thousands of UK patients each year.

However, current research data does not always reflect the true nature of all communities in the UK. The Birmingham project is the first time that significant amounts of data from minority ethnic patients will be structured and made available for complex lung disease research and drug development.

A novel application of neural network learning

Kurite has developed an AI model that tracks lung scarring and other signs of disease progression in IPF patients.

Models can predict whether a patient will survive 12 months and whether current treatments are working, Thillai says. Prognosis can also help patients decide whether to opt for more toxic treatments with more severe side effects. whether to choose or not.

“We make creative models, and those kinds of accurate creative answers are really helpful in disease progression,” he says. “Neural network learning in imaging has only been available for a few years. It is now possible to create 3D models, and we were the first to apply it to this disease.”

Qureight is already partnering with pharmaceutical partners such as Roche and Boehringer, and in September presented a study for IPF treatment to Belgian pharma company Galapagos at the European Respiratory Society’s (ERS) annual meeting.

Because the efficacy studies are primarily based on data collected from white men, however, it is unclear whether Kuriet’s technique is as accurate in detecting disease progression in more diverse populations.

Thillai said the Birmingham trial, which will result in AI models that better reflect population diversity, should provide preliminary results by the end of the year.

He said the company hopes to expand its lung and airway model to asthma, a disease that is on the rise, especially in the developing world. It also has ambitions to expand to models looking at blood-based biomarkers.