AstraZeneca and Qureight to Collaborate on Lung Disease Research

Rare Daily Staff

Cambridge, UK-based data analytics company Qureight has entered into a multi-year collaboration with the biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca focused on complex lung diseases.

The agreement will allow AstraZeneca to use Qureight’s proprietary platform and AI technology to conduct research across a range of complex lung diseases, leveraging imaging data analytics and using sophisticated AI models to better understand how patients with rare and complex lung diseases could respond to novel drugs.

Complex lung diseases, such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and pulmonary hypertension currently have limited treatment options and poor survival rates. To address this, and to improve outcomes for patients, Qureight was founded by clinicians and researchers in Cambridge in 2018.

Qureight’s proprietary cloud platform analyses CT scans, blood biomarkers, and clinical results from patients with a range of complex lung and heart conditions. The technology creates models with both real world and clinical trial data, so researchers can better understand how patients could respond to novel treatments.

“The multi-year collaboration announced today is an important validation of our technology stack and builds on our existing partnership with AstraZeneca, a leader in respiratory care,” said Muhunthan Thillai, co-founder and CEO of Qureight.

In May 2023, at the American Thoracic Society meeting in Washington, D.C., Qureight presented research findings jointly with AstraZeneca. These showed how image-based AI models could be integrated with clinical models to capture data at a single time point in the IPF patient journey and predict 12-month mortality signals with strong accuracy. Qureight has previously used its technology in phase 2 clinical trials to differentiate between patients on a drug and placebo arm in the same disease.

“Qureight’s AI technology allows us to investigate outcomes in multiple respiratory diseases, helping us to create new endpoints and improve patient selection for clinical trials in diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis,” said Maria Belvisi, senior vice president and head of Research and Early Development, Respiratory & Immunology, BioPharmaceuticals R&D AstraZeneca.

Photo: Muhunthan Thillai, co-founder and CEO of Qureight