Bruce E. Bloom

Healx Limited, Cambridge, England

Title: Building a new future of drug discovery

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Biography

Dr. Bruce Bloom is Chief Collaboration Officer of Healx, a Cambridge UK biotech using AI and drug redevelopment to create novel therapies for rare disease patients.  He founded and lead the global charity Cures Within Reach that brought over a dozen redeveloped drug therapies to patients through proof-of-concept clinical trials, and developed Cure Accelerator®, the online drug redevelopment collaboration marketplace.  Dr. Bloom is an Ashoka Social Entrepreneur Fellow, the Patient Advisory Board Chair for the Institute for Translational Medicine, Board member of the Rare Disease Company Coalition, member of the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research External Advisory Board, Executive Board member of Mission: Cure, and is on the Science Advisory Boards of the Dr. Ralph and Marian Falk Medical Research Trust Awards Programs, the Findacure Fundamental Disease Charity, the Rare Disease Research Hub of the Westchester Biotech Project, ReBootRx, and the editorial board of ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies.

Abstract

The traditional drug discovery model is not working as well as it could. It is lengthy, expensive and risky - with the chances of achieving a successful treatment woefully low. Due to this, pharmaceutical companies tend to focus on blockbuster drugs aimed at large disease populations that can help recoup the costs of development for not only the successes but also the many, many failures. This approach often leaves smaller patient populations out of scope and out of reach of treatments that could potentially improve their lives.  Technology and a new focus on the patient voice can augment the current industry paradigm and drive the discovery of new treatments for rare diseases - 95% of which shockingly do not have an approved treatment. This talk will discuss three aspects of this paradigm change, 10 Reduce risk and complexity with Artificial Intelligence tools, 2) Speed up the process with by starting with drugs, nutraceuticals and human safe shelved compounds, and 3) Embed the patient voice throughout the drug discovery process.