Qureight collaborates with AstraZeneca for AI lung disease research

Data analytics company Qureight has entered into a multi-year strategic research collaboration with AstraZeneca that will use AI models to accelerate research into lung diseases.

Through the agreement, AstraZeneca will use Qureight’s proprietary analytics platform and artificial intelligence (AI) models to give researchers insight into how patients with complex lung diseases could respond to novel drugs.

Qureight’s cloud platform analyses CT scans, blood biomarkers and clinical results from patients with complex lung and heart conditions. The technology then creates models with both real world and clinical trial data. Alongside these AI models, AstraZeneca will also leverage imaging data analytics, allowing researchers to accelerate life-saving research.

Professor Maria Belvisi, senior vice president and head of research and early development, respiratory & immunology, biopharmaceuticals R&D AstraZeneca, said: “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.

“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 (IPF).”

Qureight and AstraZeneca jointly presented research findings in May 2023 at the American Thoracic Society meeting in Washington DC. This demonstrated that image-based AI models could be integrated with clinical models in order to capture data at a single time point in the journey of an IPF  patient and predict 12-month mortality signals with strong accuracy.

Dr Muhunthan Thillai, co-founder and CEO of Qureight, said: “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.”

Qureight is also involved with a research project in conjunction with University Hospitals Birmingham that is the first of its kind. The project will ensure that AI models used for treating IPF reflect the population of a diverse Britain.