Published: 13 November 2017

BenevolentAI, one of the world’s largest private AI companies, in partnership with the Association of Medical Research Charities (“AMRC”) announced today it has created a new award, the BenevolentAI Award, to help charities accelerate their medical research and potentially develop new treatments and therapies using artificial intelligence.

The Award will be given to a single applicant once a year.  BenevolentAI will offer the winning applicant access to the Company’s unique technology platform in order to solve specific research challenges the selected charity is facing.  For example, to carry out deep investigation in a specific disease, create a better understanding of the disease, identify new areas and approaches in R&D and accelerate research towards new treatments and cures.   

Applications for the Award open today.  The deadline for submission is 31 January 2018.  An Award judging panel including Jackie Hunter, CEO of BenevolentBio and Aisling Burnand, CEO of the AMRC will access applications and choose a winner which will be announced at the AMRC & ABPI Patients First Conference on 20 March 2018.

Jackie Hunter, CEO of BenevolentBio, the bioscience subsidiary of BenevolentAI, commented:

“Most scientific breakthroughs are made by analysing data, but we live in a world where vast quantities of data make the discovery of new drugs and treatments for disease very difficult.  We use AI to solve this issue and want to offer medical research charities the chance to benefit from the successes we have had a a company in developing, validating and commercialising this technology.”

Aisling Burnand, CEO of the AMRC, commented:

“Getting new treatments to people affected by life threatening and life limiting illnesses is of paramount importance to medical research charities. To do this we have to constantly embrace innovation, new ways of thinking, new ways of funding and use every tool in the box. Increasingly our members are recognising the vital role that advanced technologies can play in accelerating their work. The opportunity to have Benevolent AI work on a project for one of our members for a year is a very exciting prospect which could give that research process a huge kick start.”

Full details of the Award are available on the BenevolentAI (www.benevolent.ai) and the AMRC websites. 

ENDS

Further information

• James Chandler, VP, Corporate Affairs, BenevolentAI, [email protected] 
• Andy Shaw/James Roche/Nancy Williams, Red Consultancy, [email protected], 020 7025 6500
• Carol Bewick, Director of External Affairs, AMRC, [email protected]

NOTES TO EDITORS

About BenevolentAI (www.benevolent.ai)

BenevolentAI is the global leader in the development and application of AI for scientific innovation.  It is the largest private AI company in Europe and one of the world’s top five private AI companies.  Since it was founded in 2013, BenevolentAI has been building and applying AI to the world’s new natural resource – data, to generate and probe science’s ‘hidden knowledge’.  By doing so, the Company is turning highly fragmented unstructured information into new insight and usable knowledge. 

The technology is transforming the process of scientific discovery and enabling previously unimaginable scientific advances.  BenevolentAI has proven its technology by applying it to human biology and has made significant progress in accelerating drug development.

About the AMRC (www.amrc.org.uk)

The Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) has been the national membership organisation for the health and medical research charity sector for the last 30 years, influencing the policy and research environments by harnessing the collective strengths of our members, to demonstrate the sector’s positive impact on health and wellbeing.

AMRC has 140 members which include the largest health and medical charities in the UK: the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, and the Wellcome Trust. All members, large and small, work to the same high standards ensuring that every pound they spend on research is invested in lifesaving research of the very highest quality.