Akkure Genomics, a leading Irish AI healthcare company has today announced the release of a free version of its new “Global Genomic Clinical Trials Finder” for charities in Ireland and globally, to use on their website, in advance of World Clinical Trials Day 2023 on 20 May next.

Akkure has developed the world’s first “precision medicine” genomic clinical trial matcher integrating millions of DNA based variants into an enterprise grade AI model that matches patients to potentially suitable clinical trials, according to the trial’s eligibility criteria and patient data. 

The finder, which augments Microsoft’s recently unveiled AI “Health Insights” technology, helps find relevant clinical trials on a global scale which are personalised to match each individual patient. Microsoft has also partnered with the prestigious John’s Hopkins University Medical Center on its other “Health Insights” enterprise AI platform, the Oncology Phenotype. 

Currently, there are over 450,000 clinical trials worldwide (based on clinicaltrials.gov) with increasingly complicated trial eligibility criteria including genetic variants. However, enrolment in clinical trials is based on manual screening of millions of patients, each with up to hundreds of clinical notes requiring review and analysis by a healthcare professional, making it an inaccurate, costly, time consuming and ultimately unsustainable process. 

Traditionally, about 80% of delays in clinical trial timelines are accounted for patient recruitment and retention, with over 50% of recruitment failing to meet the stipulated timeline, meaning expensive drugs, and missed opportunities for patients.

Akkure’s Clinical Trial Matcher model aims to solve this multi-billion dollar problem for patients and pharmaceutical companies.

Akkure, founded in 2019 by Professor Oran Rigby and Professor Amy Hollingsworth, currently employs 20 people and is headquartered at NexusUCD in Dublin.

Professor Oran Rigby, CEO and co-founder, Akkure Genomics said, “At Akkure Genomics we leverage Microsoft’s technology, to empower our own AI platform capabilities and genomic based technology, to help patients get matched to clinical trials based on their individual medical diagnoses, thus boosting enrolment, improving the chances of finding an optimised precision-matched trial for patients and ultimately accelerating discovery of new therapeutics and individual cures.  

We are delighted to be able to provide a version of this service for free to charities around the world to help their communities find suitable trials not only more efficiently but offering real hope of the best trial for the right patient.”

Clinical Trials Day is observed on 20 May every year to mark the anniversary of the day in 1747 when James Lind conducted the first randomised clinical study. 

Interested charities can request more information at https://www.akkure.com/AI-trial-finder/.