Demiurge AI Discovers WHO essential medicine combination treatments for reducing the mortality rate of critically ill COVID-19 patients

SWITZERLAND, FRIDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2020 10:50 PM CET

Demiurge is responding to the global outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) through the appropriate use of our AI platform of discovering novel therapeutic solutions and predicting clinical trial outcomes. We are conducting deep analyses of published studies and clinical data on COVID-19 against our precise broad-spectrum virology models.

It is paramount to develop effective treatments for critically ill patients because COVID-19 has higher mortality rate of critically ill patients than SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV.

It is equally important to develop scalable treatments that are cost-effective and globally available so as to reduce the mortality rate of COVID-19 in various countries of different infection control capabilities.

We hereby officially announce the discovery of the following scalable effective candidate treatments for reducing the mortality rate of critically ill COVID-19 patients worldwide:

• The combination of topoisomerase I inhibitors and topoisomerase II inhibitors could potentially be an exceptionally effective treatment strategy to protect critically ill patients from death caused by COVID-19-specific cytokine storm and comorbidities including nosocomial infections and sepsis.

• Topoisomerase I inhibitors have been shown to suppress virus-replication-induced host immunity response in vitro, and topoisomerase II inhibitors have been shown to suppress virus replication in vitro.

• The optimal treatment sequence for COVID-19 is topoisomerase I inhibitors followed by topoisomerase II inhibitors because cytokine storm attenuation by topoisomerase I inhibitors would synergistically boost virus yield reduction by topoisomerase II inhibitors.  

• Both topoisomerase I inhibitors and topoisomerase II inhibitors have been approved and marketed for decades as effective and safe chemotherapy medications used for anticancer treatments all over the world.

• The combination of irinotecan (a topoisomerase I inhibitor) and etoposide (a topoisomerase II inhibitor) has been studied in human clinical trials as a treatment for lung cancers and exhibited feasible toxicity profiles.

• The combination of irinotecan and etoposide could be a globally scalable effective treatment for critically ill COVID-19 patients because both irinotecan and etoposide are available in more than 40 countries and they are on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines that are the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system.

• The combination of irinotecan and etoposide may be suitable for off-label use for critically ill COVID-19 patients for whom there isn’t any specialized effective treatment available.

In endemic/pandemic settings, public interest in treatment availability and commercial interest in marketing exclusivity are usually misaligned, but we have no doubt that public interest must be prioritized because lives matter above all else.

We have thus chosen to announce those discoveries to the public first without any delay in either applying for patent protection in secret or working with biopharmaceutical companies in private, so as to waive commercial interests once for all to speed up cross-border concerted efforts to test the efficacy of the irinotecan+etoposide combination therapy for the benefits of millions of families that have been affected by COVID-19.

About Demiurge Technologies

Demiurge Technologies is a research-based AI-biopharmaceutical company that transforms publicly available life science data into precise disease models in areas with unmet medical needs. The company pioneers a self-correcting scientific approach that validates disease models with the accuracy of AI-based predictions of phase 3 clinical trial outcomes. The company also pioneers a self-sustaining business that commercializes disease models by accelerating the AI-based discovery and development of innovative medicines. Demiurge started in 2016 with headquarters in Switzerland.

AI has been an emerging powerful approach to deeper disease understanding and faster drug discovery, yet it must be put to the most rigorous test to prove its worth under public scrutiny. Demiurge has predicted the outcomes of more than 90 phase 3 clinical trials across multiple therapeutic areas and achieved more than 80% accuracy. Furthermore, we have been inviting the public to witness our future predictions of clinical trial outcomes on Twitter (@DemiurgeTech).

Therefore, we officially put forward our AI-based discovery of irinotecan+etoposide, a scalable effective candidate treatment for reducing the mortality rate of critically ill COVID-19 patients, as a scientific hypothesis only and invite the world to validate whether irinotecan+etoposide could bring clinical benefit to critically ill patients via properly administered off-label use for COVID-19. Demiurge urges everyone to refrain from believing in the efficacy and safety of irinotecan+etoposide for COVID-19 before any clinical data come in.

Disclaimers

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