AI platform says Olumiant could be repurposed for Alzheimer's

With so many novel drug candidates for Alzheimer's disease failing in clinical development, researchers in the US have started using artificial intelligence (AI) to screen already-approved therapies for activity against the neurodegenerative disorder. A team based at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School has come up with an AI algorithm – called DRIAD (Drug Repurposing In Alzheimer's Disease) – that it hopes will not only find treatments but also tease out new therapeutic targets. The AI uses machine learning to measure what happens to human brain neural cells when treated with a drug, and could be "a more rapid and less expensive option" than clinical trials of novel therapeutics, according to the researchers. In the journal Nature Communications, Harvard informatics specialist Artem Sokolov and colleagues report that early studies with the platform based on 80 approved drugs suggest Eli Lilly's Olumiant (baricitinib) as a possible candidate for repurposing as an AD therapy. It's not the first time that AI has suggested a new role for Olumiant, which is approved as an arthritis drug.