A shopper enters Selfridges department store in Oxford Street as it reopens in London, Britain on June 15, 2020. (Photo by Ray Tang/Xinhua)
While the world is racing against time to find vaccines and drugs for COVID-19, some tech-centric British companies are turning to China for medical collaboration.
by Xinhua writer Zhang Jiawei
LONDON, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- The world is racing against time to find vaccines and drugs for COVID-19 with big international pharmaceutical companies playing a key role.
But a new generation of tech-centric companies is bringing new ideas into the process, promising some unconventional but more efficient solutions to diagnosing the disease and finding treatments. And these Britain-based companies are keen to work with academic institutions and companies in China to bring innovation to wider areas.
"At Exscientia, we have been actively applying our Artificial Intelligence (AI) drug discovery platform to find treatments for the coronavirus," Milly Chen, commercial director of Exscientia, told Xinhua.
Founded in 2012, Exscientia dubs itself as a "pharmatech company", which applies AI to accelerate the time-consuming novel drug discovery. Generally, it takes around 10 to 15 years for a drug to go from initial discovery to the marketplace, according to the company.
Exscientia generates its own data before combining the analytical power of AI with the creativity and expertise of its scientists. This allows Exscientia to shorten the pre-clinical drug discovery stage by at least three-quarters and, in turn, substantially accelerate the delivery of new treatments to patients worldwide, according to the company.
Now in the face of COVID-19, governments are eager to find effective vaccines and drugs. Companies like Exscientia have the opportunity to prove that their technology might be helpful in the fight against the coronavirus.
A staff member takes out samples of the COVID-19 inactivated vaccine at a vaccine production plant of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) in Beijing, capital of China, April 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuwei)
Earlier this year, Exscientia initiated collaboration with the University of Oxford and other institutions to screen 15,000 small molecules against key coronavirus targets, said Chen.
In August, Exscientia took part in Europe's largest initiative (CARE consortium) and will use its AI drug discovery platform to accelerate drug discovery for COVID-19 and future coronavirus threats.
The same thing is happening with Owlstone Medical.
The company has developed the Breath Biopsy platform which can be used in clinical diagnostics and precision medicine with applications in cancer and a wide range of other medical conditions. And its ReCIVA Breath Sampler ensures reliable collection of breath samples.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an unprecedented global requirement for better diagnostic tools, not just for the testing itself, but also for sample collection," Billy Boyle, CEO of Owlstone Medical, told Xinhua.
"The gold standard for sample collection is nasopharyngeal swabs, which are difficult to take correctly and must be done by a skilled healthcare practitioner, exposing them to risk. For this reason, a simple system that could actively or passively collect a sample has the potential to be of great value," said Boyle.
The team at Owlstone Medical is actively investigating multiple potential solutions, including an at-home collection device.
Additionally, the company is working to deploy its Breath Biopsy platform to look for markers of damage from COVID-19, which has the potential to be used to identify those patients most at risk of developing severe complications and to predict prognosis.
Photo taken on March 4, 2020 shows a general view of the Canary Wharf financial district in London, Britain. (Photo by Tim Ireland/Xinhua)
In May, Owlstone Medical announced that it will be part of the IMI (Innovative Medicines Initiative)-funded DRAGON project, a 21-party consortium seeking to develop better diagnostic and prognostic approaches for COVID-19.
"We hope that one of the key learnings that will come of this (the COVID-19 pandemic) is the need for a rapid global response, underpinned by reliable diagnostic tools that will enable the spread and impact of future pandemics to be minimized," said Boyle.
To explore more use case where technology can achieve greater results in the fight against COVID-19 and other medical areas, both Exscientia and Owlstone Medical are looking to China for inspiration and collaboration.
"Owlstone Medical is actively exploring ways to improve COVID-19 diagnosis through improved sample collection and to better understand the severity and risk of complications through breath-based studies...These are global efforts and so we are very interested in working with leading institutions and organizations in China," Boyle said.
China is "an important part of our strategy", not just for the enormous commercial opportunity for breath-based diagnostics, but "to support the thriving academic and biopharma work underway in China and to gain access to the large hospital networks that can support development of our tests," said Boyle.
As for Exscientia, it is currently collaborating with a Shanghai-based biotech company. With Exscientia's AI drug discovery platform, the two companies are accelerating the discovery of novel small molecule therapies to address key unmet need areas in oncology.
"We are also in discussions with respected Chinese pharmaceutical companies regarding projects that could have positive impact globally. Our goal is to use the power of Exscientia's AI drug discovery platform to co-develop and accelerate the discovery of innovative therapies for patients in China and around the world," said Chen. ■
