RAPID RESPONSE
In January 2020, as the pandemic spread, we set out to find an existing drug that could be repurposed as a COVID-19 treatment. Although we designed our technology to develop new drugs for disease — not identify new uses for existing medications — we could make this pivot thanks to our comprehensive data foundations and flexible, disease-agnostic approach.
BenevolentAI scientists used our tools to search the Knowledge Graph for mechanisms related to viral infection and inflammatory response. They identified baricitinib — a drug owned by Eli Lilly and approved for rheumatoid arthritis — as the strongest candidate.1 This hypothesis was based on novel information extracted from published literature using our Platform that baricitinib could have an off-target antiviral effect in addition to being a well-known anti-inflammatory.
The whole process took just 48 hours.
LIFE-SAVING BENEFITS
Our hypothesis was proven true. Data from four randomised controlled trials confirmed that baricitinib is a safe and effective treatment for severe COVID-19,2 with the COV-BARRIER trial showing that baricitinib plus standard of care reduced deaths by 38% across hospitalised adult patients.3
Both the World Health Organization4 and the FDA5 have recommended the use of baricitinib for hospitalised COVID-19 patients.
IMPACT
This research shows the power of augmenting human ingenuity with machine intelligence to rapidly uncover novel insights hidden deep within vast volumes of published data and research.
BEN-8744 is a novel PDE10 inhibitor under development for ulcerative colitis. BEN-8744 was discovered and is being developed by BenevolentAI using the Benevolent Platform™.
1) Richardson et al. Lancet 395, e30-e31 (2020)2.
2) Selvaraj et al. EClinicalMedicine 49, 101489 (2022)3.
3) Marconi et al. Lancet Respir Med 9, 1407-1418 (2021)4.
4) BMJ 370, m3379 (2020)5.
4) Lilly Press Release 11 May 2022
