The Virtual Patient Engine

Over at Israel21c we find an article about Optimata, a Ramat Gan, Israel company, that resently developed a new mathematical model of disease progression and response to therapy. According to a recent press release, the company has announced the “the completion of the first phase of a pilot collaboration project with Eli Lilly & Co. The project utilizes Optimata’s proprietary Virtual Patient Technology to assist in the clinical trial design of a novel anti-cancer cytotoxic compound.”
Even though Optimata is all hush-hush about its technology, here’s what’s known:

This is how Optimata develops a biomathematics-based Virtual Patient. The way we observe the dynamics of a certain disease is by reviewing all the biomedical information that is available on that particular disease. After analyzing the information, we formulate it mathematically. These formulations are implemented into computer programs, converted into a Virtual Patient and are ready for retrospective validation. We accurately repeat experimental results that are already published. Next, we prospectively validate our Virtual Patient – we predict the outcome of newly developed treatment protocols. Once this stage is reached, our Virtual Patient has the capacity of evaluating and optimizing treatment protocols of marketed drugs or drug candidates.
Successful and accurate biomathematical modeling of any patient or population of patients requires unprecedented integration of a wide spectrum of information. Optima’s Virtual Patient was developed by a group of 20 scientists who are professionals in molecular biology, biomathematics, computer sciences, operations research, medicine, veterinary medicine, clinical pharmacology and theoretical mathematics…
The Virtual Patient Engine is a biomathematics-based patient modeling system that captures the essence of the disease dynamics in a patient. It includes:

– Virtual Disease – a computer-implemented biomathematics-based model of the disease process
– Virtual Physiology – a computer-implemented biomathematics-based model of the main healthy physiological processes that are adversely affected by therapies of the disease in question
– Virtual Treatment – a computer-implemented mathematical model of the drug candidate PK/PD
The above three models work in concert to become a Virtual Patient. The ‘Engine’ component of the Virtual Patient Engine refers to the ability to generate infinite combinations of treatment schedules and patient population characteristics, thus enabling optimization in clinical development of i) efficacy/toxicity dosing trade-offs; ii) patient population(s); iii) indication(s); iv) end-points selection, etc.
Optimata’s Virtual Patient Engine was developed by mathematically synthesizing quantitative data from thousands of peer-reviewed papers in discovery, clinical testing, and basic research. The Virtual Patient Engine is validated by its ability to reproduce the results of actual experiments through simulation. Once validated, the Virtual Patient Engine is used to simulate infinite combinations of treatment protocols, each of which includes varying combinations of indication, dosing and patient population with the ultimate goal of clinical efficacy.

Company’s website…