Drug discovery is an immensely challenging problem. Under the traditional model it takes years to develop and test new drugs, evidenced by the impatient wait for a COVID-19 vaccine. Until then, we will rely on repurposing existing drugs to ease symptoms in severely affected patients. Over the last few years, BenevolentAI has amassed a substantial biomedical knowledge graph on AWS - set up to discover and develop new treatments. Given the urgency of the escalating crisis, Benevolent deployed its data, systems and in-house scientific expertise to rapidly uncover a promising treatment option in the form of an existing rheumatoid arthritis drug. This is the story of what they did, and what happened next.
Presented by Olly Oechsle, Lead Applications Engineer, Benevolent.AI
