BenevolentAI, a startup which has raised $292 million to apply AI to create drugs faster, today says it has uncovered an already approved drug as a potential treatment for COVID-19, after it applied its AI platform and team to the problem. The revelation, which has now appeared in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has entered clinical trials with a major pharmaceutical company, could offer a glimmer of hope to a world locked down by the pandemic.
In February, BenevolentAI set up a specialist scientific team and launched an investigation using its drug discovery platform.
Baroness Joanna Shields, CEO of BenevolentAI, explained: “In response to the COVID-19 global health emergency, we turned our AI drug discovery and development platform toward understanding the body’s response to this novel infectious disease.”
Key to their approach was that “rather than focusing solely on drugs that could affect the virus directly, we explored ways to inhibit the cellular processes that the virus uses to infect human cells,” she said.
HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!
I run this site in my spare time and thoroughly enjoy giving you all positive news! If you’ve enjoyed the site we’d love for you to help me share the good news far and wide, share us on Reddit, your Facebook or your Twitter and spread a little positivity around.
