(FT): French drugmaker Sanofi has teamed up with a US biotech group to use artificial intelligence in an effort to develop more effective flu vaccines.
Sanofi will share human fluid samples and data records with Massachusetts-based Berg, which will use its analytics platform to determine why vaccines work for some people but are ineffective for others. The companies will assess “different populations, races, different ages, different geographies” to gauge whether certain vaccines are more effective in “say, Asia versus Africa versus the US or the UK”.
The partnership comes as pharmaceutical companies are increasingly embracing the potential of AI to identify drug targets, new uses for existing drugs or to secure faster approval of medicines. Niven Narain, chief executive of Berg, said the initiative was the first project of this scale in vaccines and underlined the potential of AI to help combat infectious diseases.
John Shiver, senior vice-president of R&D for vaccines at Sanofi, said the initiative would use Berg’s technology to help interpret immune responses, in what he said was “a new approach in vaccines”. “We are hoping this will get us closer to the next-generation of influenza vaccine,” he added....read more>>>...