Cloud-based platform for proarrhythmic risk prediction
Project Lead
Associate Professor Adam Hill, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute
Project Team
Prof Jamie Vandenberg, VCCRI; Prof Jason Kovacic, VCCRI; Dr Satya Arjunan, VCCRI
Project Summary
Problem
Current preclinical drug screening often inaccurately assesses proarrhythmic risks, leading to the exclusion of potentially beneficial therapeutics and significant delays in drug development. There is a pressing need for more efficient and accurate methods to predict lethal ventricular arrhythmias caused by certain medications, which current guidelines fail to address effectively
Solution
This project aims to develop a streamlined, cloud-based solution for assessing proarrhythmic risks of new drugs, aligning with recent FDA guidelines promoting in silico models for risk prediction. The platform will integrate large-scale pharmacology data with cardiac electrophysiology models, providing rapid and accurate assessments. Key phases include developing protocols for cardiac ion channel data analysis, collecting a gold standard in vitro dataset, simulating a reference landscape for proarrhythmia, securing industry partners, validating risk prediction models, and translating these models to a scalable data platform.
Impact
The cloud-based platform will revolutionise preclinical drug screening by improving the accuracy and efficiency of proarrhythmic risk assessments. This will potentially reduce drug attrition rates and accelerate the development of new therapeutics, addressing unmet medical needs. By allowing clients to stream raw data for rapid processing and integrating it into in silico models, the platform will streamline FDA submissions for investigational new drugs. The anticipated reduction in drug development costs and attrition rates will have significant economic benefits.
With the global market for in silico drug discovery expected to grow significantly, this project positions itself to meet a critical market need. The platform’s success could lead to better early detection of cardiotoxicity, particularly for cardiovascular toxicity, which accounts for 40% of drug withdrawals. Community and stakeholder engagement will ensure continuous feedback and refinement, leveraging relationships with pharmaceutical companies, regulatory bodies, and industry partners to expand the platform’s reach and impact
