CWR Clinical Trials to Validate AI-Driven Drug Repurposing

Funding is available to support proof of concept or clinical trails to validate AI-driven drug repurposing opportunities in any unsolved disease. 

Cures Within Reach (CWR) is a US-based public charity that aims to improve patient quality and length of life by leveraging the speed, safety and cost-effectiveness of medical repurposing research, ensuring patients have access to more treatments at a faster rate. CWR launched the platform CureAccelerator in 2015 to bring together researchers, funders, the biomedical industry and patient groups in an online space dedicated to repurposing research.

CWR has launched a request for proposals in order to fund proof of concept, Phase I or Phase IIA clinical trials to validate artificial intelligence (AI)-driven repurposing opportunities in any unsolved disease, where the therapies supported by AI models are already approved. Eligible clinical repurposing trials must include AI-generated data as part of the preclinical support for the trial. Supporting data from any type of AI model is accepted for this call, including models that are developed/owned/controlled by non-profit/academic/government institutions or for profit companies, as well as open-use models or models only accessible via collaboration.

The programme is interested in approved drugs, biologics, eligible cellular/gene therapies or combination therapies that could be repurposed to create ‘new’ treatments for any unsolved disease. While CWR welcomes proposals in any disease area, particular attention will be paid to clinical trials addressing rare diseases.

Repurposed therapies must be approved and/or generally recognised as safe for human use by a regulatory agency (US FDA, EMA, Health Canada etc). These therapies must be tested in a new indication for which they are not already approved or used widely in clinical practice as standard of care. They may be added to current standard of care to improve patient outcomes and/or quality of life. While both on- and off-patent repurposed therapies are eligible, preference is for off-patent therapies. 

CWR encourages submissions employing any form of AI, provided that the chosen model contributes meaningfully to identifying, prioritising, ranking and/or validating repurposed drugs for unsolved diseases in a clinical trial context. Examples of AI model uses include:

• Identifying a potential pathway with a known repurposed drug target to address an underlying disease phenotype or disease symptoms.
• Predicting a repurposed drug-target link based on a protein structure.
• Simulating/predicting a cellular response based on a repurposed drug.
• Ranking the likelihood of a repurposed drug to impact a disease, a disease process and/or disease symptoms.
• Predicting a repurposed drug/disease match, either expected or unexpected, without a known mechanism of action.
• Verifying preclinical data supporting the use of a repurposed drug in a specific disease or disease process.