NIMH Awards PsychoGenics $3 million Grant to Use AI Platform for Repurposing

Rare Daily Staff

The National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health awarded a Fast Track Small Business Innovation Research grant worth up to $3 million over four years to use its AI platform to repurpose existing drugs to treat rare diseases.

There are approximately 10,000 identified rare diseases affecting up to 400 million people worldwide, with more than 90 percent lacking any treatment options. Half of all rare disorders impact children, with 90 percent of these being neurological, the company said.

PsychoGenics will use its eCube platform to evaluate various rare disease mouse models. The results will be used to predict possible treatments, which will then be tested in the models. eCube measures drug-induced changes to EEG spectra data and utilizes machine learning to predict the efficacy of novel compounds. In addition to predicting therapeutic applications for novel compounds, eCube can deliver translational biomarkers, providing an objective way to assess CNS activity, which is particularly important for compounds with unknown or complex mechanisms of action.

By applying this to existing drugs, PsychoGenics aims to rapidly bring new treatment options to patients through repurposing. Success in these efforts could pave the way for rapidly addressing many more rare diseases swiftly.

“By leveraging our expertise in drug discovery and advanced machine learning techniques to find new applications for existing treatments in rare diseases, we expect to make a rapid, positive impact for patients with limited or no treatment options,” said Emer Leahy, CEO of PsychoGenics. “If successful, this approach can be expanded to address even more rare diseases.”