Tackling Tuberculosis with AI: Novel TBMeld® Platform to Transform Research in the Prevention and Treatment of Tuberculosis


-InveniAI announces partnership with the Mueller Health Foundation (MHF) to create a first of its kind AI-driven platform to be used for the discovery, tracking, and evaluation of 1) novel TB vaccines, 2) new TB treatment combinations with existing medicines, 3) novel TB treatment opportunities with adjuvant combinations, and 4) tailored precision medicine approaches for the prevention and treatment of TB.

GUILFORD, Conn., July 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- InveniAI® LLC, a global leader pioneering the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to transform innovation across drug discovery and development, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with The Mueller Health Foundation (MHF), a private foundation dedicated to supporting innovative, accessible and affordable solutions to generate transformational treatment modalities and ultimately cures for lethal infectious diseases across the globe. The main focus for the Mueller Health Foundation has been primarily on the management of multidrug resistance (MDR), extensively drug-resistant (XDR), and programmatically incurable forms of tuberculosis (totally drug-resistant tuberculosis), which pose enormous challenges similar to those in the “pre-Antibiotics” era. The Mueller Health Foundation will partner with InveniAI to create a new high-value AI-driven machine learning platform called TBMeld® to identify and accelerate transformative solutions and vaccines for the management, treatment, and cure of TB. Additionally, the new platform will incorporate predictive modeling functionalities to estimate the effectiveness of TB drug compounds and compound combinations, as well as the effectiveness of new TB vaccines.

“Our mission at the Mueller Health Foundation (MHF) is to pioneer the use of precision medicine to be able to provide tailored, highly effective, and shorter treatment options for TB patients affected by both resistant and non-resistant strains of TB. We at MHF are also exploring novel ways of making existing TB vaccines more effective for all types of patients,” said Dr. Peter Mueller, Founder and President of the Mueller Health Foundation. He also states: “We are particularly excited to make use of machine learning algorithms and predictive modeling capabilities offered by InveniAI to find better approaches to preventing and treating tuberculosis faster and more effectively. What especially excites us is the opportunity to integrate this new platform, TBMeld®, into our own blockchain initiative TBConnect, which aims to create a global network of TB scientists, health care providers, NGOs, and government entities to foster the sharing and analysis of both research and public health information.”

“We are excited to create an AlphaMeld-powered platform that, together with complementary technologies such as blockchain and the crowdsourcing of knowledge, information, and experts around the world, will allow for the comprehensive collation of troves of data to expedite the discovery of novel solutions and vaccines to address this unmet need in TB resistant management.  The predictive foresight enabled by the platform will allow us to focus on concepts that will have the highest probability of success,” said Krishnan Nandabalan, Ph.D. President and CEO, InveniAI LLC.

About Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis has been named by WHO as one of 10 leading causes of death in the world and it is a disease that occurs in every part of the world. According to WHO latest report in 2019, an estimated 10 million people fell ill with tuberculosis worldwide in 2018. This included 5.7 million men, 3.2 million women and 1.1 million children. An estimated 1.5 million people died of the disease in 2018. There were cases in all countries and age groups. In 2018, the 30 high TB burden countries accounted for 87% of new TB cases. Eight countries account for two thirds of the total, with India leading the count, followed by, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and South Africa. Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) remains a public health crisis and a health security threat. WHO estimates that there were 484 000 new cases with resistance to rifampicin. While the TB incidence is falling at about 2% per year globally, this rate needs to be accelerated to a 4–5% annual decline to reach health targets of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. (Source: WHO 2019 Global Tuberculosis Report)

About The Mueller Health Foundation
The Mueller Health Foundation is a family-led, philanthropic organization installed in February 2015 that prides itself on supporting innovative, accessible and affordable solutions to generate transformational treatment modalities and ultimately cures for lethal infectious diseases across the globe. The Mueller Health Foundation accomplishes this by addressing latency and increased antimicrobial resistance as the underlying core problem. Since inception of The Mueller Health Foundation, the main focus has been primarily on the management of multidrug resistance (MDR), extensively drug resistant (XDR) and programmatically incurable forms of tuberculosis (totally drug resistant tuberculosis). The Mueller Health Foundation focuses on core functions to address tuberculosis that include:

  • Funding bold and innovative research to find new treatment solutions for TB in its latent state as well as for multi-drug resistant strains of TB (MDR-TB);
  • Funding innovative research to find new vaccines for TB and for making existing TB vaccines more effectiveness for a broader population;
  • Developing new strategies and educational programs geared toward TB prevention, care and control;
  • Fostering the collection and access to valuable TB data and knowledge by using state of the art technologies such as Blockchain and AI; and
  • Supporting and engaging in cross-sectoral partnerships to fight against TB.

For more information, please visit: www.muellerhealthfoundation.org.

About InveniAI
InveniAI® LLC, based in Guilford, Conn., is a global leader pioneering the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to transform innovation across drug discovery and development by identifying and accelerating transformative therapies for diseases with unmet medical needs. The company leverages AI and ML to harness petabytes of disparate data sets to recognize and unlock value for AI-based drug discovery and development. Numerous industry collaborations in Big Pharma, Specialty Pharma, Biotech, and Consumer Healthcare showcase the value of leveraging our technology to meld human experience and expertise with the power of machines to augment R&D decision-making across all major therapeutic areas. The company leverages the AlphaMeld® platform to generate drug candidates for our industry partners and internal drug portfolio. For more information, visit www.inveniai.com.

Contact:
Anita Ganjoo, Ph.D.
Communications
InveniAI
T: +1 203-273-8388
aganjoo@inveniai.com

Judith Mueller
Executive Director
The Mueller Health Foundation
T: +1 508-333-1184
judith@muellerhealthfoundation.org