Health ITInterviewUncategorizedInSilicoTrials Wins 3 EU Projects To Accelerate Innovation In Healthcare

InSilicoTrials.com is the only cloud-based platform that offers complex computational models made easy-to-use and cost-effective for the benefit of all pharmaceutical companies and medical device producers.

InSilicoTrials recently won 3 projects (SimCardioTest, Brainteaser, In SilicoWorld) out of 9 submitted to Horizon 2020, EU’s most important funding program for research and innovation: an amazing result since usually the acceptance rate is 5%.

To learn more, we conducted an interview with Luca Emili, CEO and Founder of InSilicoTrials.

1.Can you tell us more about InSilicoTrials?

InSilicoTrials aims to accelerate innovation in the healthcare sector. The very high cost and the very long time necessary to develop new drugs and medical devices are no longer acceptable and no longer affordable especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Modeling and simulation is key to solve this problem. We want to democratize healthcare by letting all players access this cutting-edge technology. This is how we work. We select the best simulation models in universities worldwide; we simplify their interface and workflow so that also scientists with no simulation expertise can run them; we integrate them on our cloud-based platform so that our clients don’t need to buy any IT infrastructure. Our models can be accessed in a pay-per-use mode, thus allowing to cut the cost and time of R&D up to 50%.

2. Who can benefit from your services?

Pharmaceutical companies of all sizes, contract research organizations, medical device producers and research centers. Each computational model on our platform has a very user-friendly interface: scientists just need to upload their own data and set parameters. Then, they literally just have to push a button to run the in silico trials. In a few minutes or hours – depending on the model they are using – they can get outcomes. The results can be easily downloaded in a document that is already compliant and ready to be accepted by regulatory bodies like the FDA or the EMA.

3. You won 3 projects out of 9 submitted to Horizon 2020. Can you tell us more about those projects and why do you think they were accepted by Horizon 2020, especially with its low average success rate?

The success rate is about 5%, our success rate is 33,33%, so we consider this an amazing achievement, especially for a small startup. We were invited to join this Horizon 2020 projects by universities and research center that know our work. So this  means that we are already considered relevant and trustworhy in the field of Modeling and Simulation for healthcare. We will be working with over 140 esteemed European scientists until 2024 and collecting a total amount of €1.8M.

These 3 projects all leverage cutting-edge technology like Modeling and Simulation and Artificial Intelligence to accelerate innovation in healthcare, especially for drug and medical device development. SimCardioTest aims to help fight cardiovascular diseases, first cause of death worldwide, through the design of predictive tools for drug and medical device development. BRAINTEASER’s objective is to improve the quality of life of patients affected by ALS and Multiple Sclerosis, while helping clinicians predict disease progression and assign correct treatment. In Silico World will develop 11 computational solutions to test the safety and the efficacy of medical devices and medicinal products to treat Osteoporosis, Tuberculosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Coronary Stenosis, Cerebral Aneurysms, Mammary Carcinoma, and COVID-19 infection.

4. Will your projects help tackle COVID-19? Can you elaborate on that?

In Silico World will leverage Modeling and Simulation to cut time and cost in the development of efficient tools to fight COVID-19 infection. This will include medical devices but also medicinal products to treat COVID patients. It is important to underline here that the pandemic has had a great impact on the pharma industry, showing that it was necessary to cut the very long development time for new drugs. Coming up with a few COVID-19 vaccines in 10 months instead of 5 or 6 years has also been possible through the use of computational simulation.

5. How will InSilicoTrials maximize the commercial exploitation of the new tools that will result from the 3 projects?

Our company will lead the analysis of the business opportunities for the technological solutions developed by the SimCardioTest, BRAINTEASER and In Silico World. The aim is to maximize the commercial exploitation of the new tools through the InSilicoTrials.com platform. This means that in the next 4 years a relevant number of impactful and validated computational models will populate our platform, contributing with other models to build a marketplace for pharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations and medical device producers.

6. Where do you see InSilicoTrials in the next 5-years?

In 5 years our company will be the Netflix of healthcare: an online platform where pharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations and medical device producers will be able to choose among hundreds of computational models and use them in the total security of the cloud, thus reducing time and cost of R&D up to 50%. We succeeded to make a very complex and expensive technology like Modeling and Simulation easy to use and cost-effective.