Scientists applied artificial intelligence (AI) to reanalyse a clinical trial for AI in Alzheimer Drug Development, identifying a group of patients who responded to medical treatment. The study shows that AI can help design future clinical trials to be more effective and efficient, expediting the search for novel medications.
Using AI in Alzheimer Drug Development, the researchers were able to divide trial participants into two groups: those who were developing either gradually or rapidly towards Alzheimer’s disease. They might then assess the drug’s impact on each group.
This more specific selection of trial participants could assist in picking people who are most likely to benefit from therapy, thereby lowering the cost of creating new drugs by expediting clinical trials.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge developed an AI model that predicts whether and how quickly individuals in the early stages of cognitive loss would advance to Alzheimer’s. It predicts patients’ outcomes three times more accurately than typical clinical assessments based on memory tests, MRI scans, and blood tests.
Using this patient classification technique, data from a completed clinical trial that did not show efficacy in the entire group investigated was reanalysed. The researchers discovered that the treatment eliminated a protein called beta amyloid in both patient groups as expected, but only the early-stage, slow-progressing patients had symptomatic changes. Beta amyloid is one of the earliest illness indicators to emerge in the brain during Alzheimer’s disease.
The new findings have significant implications: using AI in Alzheimer’s Drug Developmentto categorise patients into different groups, such as slow versus rapid progression to Alzheimer’s disease, allows scientists to better identify those who could benefit from a treatment approach, potentially speeding up the discovery of much-needed new Alzheimer’s medications.
Kourtzi is currently receiving support from Health Innovation East England, the NHS’s innovation arm in the East of England, to transfer this AI-enabled strategy into clinical care for future patients.
Joanna Dempsey, Principal Advisor at Health Innovation East England, said: “This AI-enabled approach could have a significant impact on easing NHS pressure and costs in dementia care by enabling more personalised drug development – identifying which patients are most likely to benefit from treatment, resulting in faster access to effective medicines and targeted support for people living with dementia.”
These drugs are not meant to cure Alzheimer’s disease. The goal is to slow cognitive deterioration so that patients do not worsen.
Dementia is the top cause of death in the United Kingdom, as well as a major cause of mortality worldwide. It costs $1.3 trillion every year, and the number of cases is projected to triple by 2050. There is no cure, and patients and families confront significant uncertainty.
Despite decades of study and development, clinical trials for dementia treatments have mainly failed. Despite $43 billion in R&D spending, the failure rate for new therapeutics remains excessively high at more than 95%. Patients’ symptoms, disease development, and treatment responses have all varied greatly, impeding progress.
Although novel dementia medications have recently been approved for use in the United States, their potential for adverse effects and insufficient cost-effectiveness have hampered healthcare acceptance in the NHS.
Understanding and accounting for natural variances among people with a condition is critical so that therapies can be customised to each patient’s specific needs. Alzheimer’s disease is complex, and while some medications are available to treat it, they are not effective for everyone.
“AI can guide us to the patients who will benefit from dementia medicines, by treating them at the stage when the drugs will make a difference, so we can finally start fighting back against these cruel diseases. Making clinical trials faster, cheaper and better, guided by AI has strong potential to accelerate discovery of new precise treatments for individual patients, reducing side effects and costs for healthcare services,” said Kourtzi.
She added: “Like many people, I have watched hopelessly as dementia stole a loved one from me. We’ve got to accelerate the development of dementia medicines. Over £40 billion has already been spent over thirty years of research and development – we can’t wait another thirty years.”
