Intellomx Receives Coveted Approval in China for its Novel Diagnostic Study on Detection of Latent Luberculosis

Intellomx Corporate Logo

Xianxiang Chen, Chairman of Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital

Photo of Simon Haworth, Director of Intellomx

Intellomx have received Chinese government approval for a novel clinical diagnostics study for TB, to distinguish patients with latent TB using biomarkers.

We believe that our collaboration on a novel approach for detection of latent tuberculosis will herald a new beginning for TB treatment and prevention as well as for our important Sino-UK partnership.”

— Xianxiang Chen

NOTTINGHAM, UK, December 20, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Ministry of Science & Technology (MOST) in Beijing announced this week that UK drug-discovery AI company Intelligent OMICS has

been granted approval for its Tuberculosis (TB) study in Wuhan, China.

The study aims to validate both a panel of diagnostic biomarkers that predicts the presence of latent Tuberculosis and to validate potential biological drug targets that provide new treatment options.

Approval enables data to be shared for the first time between Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital and the company’s research team. Transfer of genetic material and data is strictly controlled within China and has proved a significant challenge for western pharmaceutical and biotech companies. It has taken Intelligent OMICS two years to achieve this valuable milestone under China's Human Genetic Resources Administrative Licensing regulations.

The World Health Organisation reports that “a total of 1.6 million people died from TB worldwide in 2021 (including 187 000 people with HIV). TB is the 13th leading cause of death and the second leading infectious killer after COVID-19 (above HIV/AIDS). In 2021, an estimated 10.6 million people fell ill with tuberculosis (TB) worldwide."

“Our team in China, led by Ms Nicole Song, has worked tirelessly to address the complexities of Chinese regulation,” comments the Intellomx Director Dr Simon Haworth. “Few international companies have achieved this approval, making cross-border genetics-related research impossible for most. But TB is a critical global issue and our ability to diagnose TB in its latent, hidden state is going to make a very significant impact in disease prevention and in understanding of the underlying disease pathways. "

Dr. Haworth continued “This is clearly valued in China - as well as in India and other geographies with a high TB burden. Ultimately, we expect to apply this research to identify new therapies for TB that take effect prior to the acquisition of drug resistance so that we can address the twin issues of latent TB and multi-drug resistance infection. But first, we are absolutely delighted to be able to progress this important study in China and look forward to reporting results in Q2 2023.

The research is being undertaken in collaboration with the highly-rated Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital in Wuhan, Hubei Province.

“Collaboration with Simon and the Intelligent OMICS team has been a very positive experience for us, illustrating the great opportunity of cross-border collaboration,” says Xianxiang Chen, Chairman of Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital. “We believe that this work will herald a new beginning for TB treatment and prevention as well as a new beginning for our Sino-UK partnership.”

About Intellomx
Intelligent OMICS (“Intellomx”; https://www.intellomx.com) is a UK-based company. Intellomx uses artificial intelligence to model molecular data, discerning the underlying disease pathway for each disease. The Company’s results indicate the comparative importance of key molecules or genes, show how they fit together in the disease state, indicate the impact on the disease pathway of knocking out a given target or group of targets, and prioritise targets for development according to their disease impact and off-target tox risk. All this is done in silico before results are tested in the wet lab saving years of time and considerable money for the drug development process.

Intellomx is currently undertaking parallel analyses in P53, in pancreatic cancer, AML, breast cancer and other cancers as well as in auto-immune disease, diabetes, COPD, TB and Sepsis.

The Intelligent OMICS technology replaces the popular but flawed meta-analysis and semantic mining of literature with direct, evidence-based analysis of the underlying systems biology of disease. Our method addresses the flaw in literature-derived Knowledge Graphs by identifying the novel results not yet covered in literature.

Intellomx uses its own proprietary technology to identify new drugs and companion diagnostics, and also provide services to pharma.

Within the next 10 years, AI will enable Intellomx to complete drug discovery and development through to Phase III trials in silico in under 9 months, and then to work out which wet lab and clinical trial experiments are needed to satisfy the regulators leading to drug approval.