Published: 6 December 2018

AMRC, in partnership with BenevolentAI, announced today it is running the ‘BenevolentAI Award’ for a second year following the success of BenevolentAI's work with previous winners, Parkinson’s UK and Cure Parkinson’s Trust. Through this Award, BenevolentAI will help charities accelerate their medical research and potentially develop new treatments and therapies using artificial intelligence.

Awarded to a single applicant BenevolentAI will offer access to its artificial intelligence platform to help solve critical research challenges the selected charity is facing. For example carrying out deep investigation in a specific disease, creating a better understanding of the disease, or even identifying new areas and approaches in R&D to speed up progress towards new treatments.  

Applications for the the BenevolentAI Award open today.  The deadline for submission is 15^th March 2019. An Award judging panel including Jackie Hunter, CEO of Clinical Programs & Strategic Relationships at BenevolentAI, and Aisling Burnand, CEO of the AMRC will review  applications and choose a winner.

Jackie Hunter, BenevolentAI commented:

“The challenges that medical charities face in research and development are complex and incredibly time intensive. We have seen this first hand having worked closely with Parkinson’s UK and Cure Parkinson’s Trust for the last year, so I’m proud to see the BenevolentAI Award initiative being repeated. Already we are able to deliver innovation and results by applying technology in partnership with our brilliant scientists at every stage - from data to drugs. Our inspiration for this Award is to extend these opportunities to charities outside of our core business objectives.”

Aisling Burnand, CEO of the AMRC, commented:

“Our member charities understand that AI and machine learning can play a significant role in finding new uses for existing drugs, as well as finding novel treatments for diseases. They also know that in order to make a breakthrough they need to try different approaches. This award is a fantastic opportunity for one of our charities to harness the remarkable technology capabilities at Benevolent AI, to deliver better treatments for their patients. It could be a game-changer.”

Full details of the Award are available on the BenevolentAI and the AMRC websites. 

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

About BenevolentAI

BenevolentAI, founded in 2013, is an AI company developing and applying advanced technologies to accelerate the journey from data to medicine. The company combines the power of computational medicine and advanced AI with the principles of open systems and cloud computing to transform the way drugs are designed, developed, tested and brought to market.  The company has developed the ‘Benevolent Platform’, the world’s only end-to-end computational and experimental platform for drug discovery that’s spans data ingestion to clinical development

BenevolentAI is HQ’d in London with a research facility in Cambridge (UK) and further offices in New York and Belgium. BenevolentAI has active R&D drug programmes from discovery to PhaseIIb in disease areas such as ALS, Parkinson’s, Ulcerative Colitis and Sarcopenia.

About the AMRC

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 145 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.