Digital twin to simulate the concentration of medication in the blood

The advancement of personalisation in medical treatment is the focus of ExactCure, a company that has developed a medical software device to promote the correct intake of medication. With its "digital twin", ExactCure is revolutionising medication practice by simulating the concentration of medication in a patient's blood. Based on personal characteristics such as weight, kidney function and genotype, their ground-breaking technology prevents under- and overdosing as well as drug interactions. In this interview, we find out more about the motivation for founding the company, convincing potential customers and ExactCure's vision for the future.

How would you explain your solution in three sentences to a professional colleague from the health sector?

"ExactCure develops a software Medical Device to promote the proper use of medication. Our Digital Twin simulates the concentration of drugs in the blood of a patient based on his/her personal characteristics (e.g. weight, renal function, genotype, etc.) in order to avoid under-doses, overdoses and drug-drug interactions. Our disruptive technology is based on fundamental research. Our goal is to become the worldwide reference in personalised medication simulations."

What problem motivated you to start the company?

"Managing treatment personalization can be highly complex, especially for patients suffering from multiple or chronic conditions. In developed nations, about one in four adults have at least two chronic conditions, and more than half of older adults have three or more chronic conditions. In addition, medications are often prescribed by different specialists which increases the complexity of the situation. No comprehensive models to adjust dose prescription are available yet and questions like “what should I prescribe if my patient is obese with kidney failure knowing that obesity is a driver for higher dosages and kidney failure for lower dosages?", still remain unsolved."

How do you convince a pharmaceutical company, a health insurance company or another potential client to set up a pilot project with you?

"ExactCure is the only company in the world able to aggregate several drug models into one single meta-model, allowing state-of-the-art posology personalization - with the highest possible number of variables (age, weight, sex, renal function, liver function, gene mutations, etc.)
We simulate over 5000 drugs. Each drug model is built in 2 steps :
1. search the entire scientific literature with our proprietary NLP tool trained to find pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic models,
2. qualify and aggregate the models found in step 1 into one single meta-model. The resulting meta-model is 30% to 60% more accurate than the second-best model.

Our value proposition for pharma companies:

• secure Clinical Trials;, reduce their cost and increase their chance to get approval

• provide a digital companion to marketed drugs and get real world evidence

Our value proposition for health insurance companies:

• screen clients with highest medication risk + propose personalised dosage adaptation, to decrease costs related to medication errors."

Who are your current customer (groups) and who do you want your potential customers to be?

"Our end-users are:

• R&D teams of pharma companies

• healthcare professionals, (HCPs)

• patients

Our target customers are :

• Medical Information Providers. They distribute existing platforms to HCPs which can integrate our personalised drug simulations, thanks to our API. E.g. in France Vidal and Cegedim Group

• Pharma companies : UPSA, Orphalan, Aspen

• Health insurance companies: Allianz, AG2R La Mondiale

We plan to expand to the DACH region and the US."

Where do you see yourself in 3 years and how can 5-HT support you?

"In 3 years we want to be considered as the leading provider of personalised drug simulations in France, DACH and the US. We will be on our way to provide simulations to each healthcare professional and patient in the world who wants to avoid under-doses, overdoses and drug-drug interactions.

5-HT can support ExactCure by 1) spreading the word about our breakthrough technology in the DACH region, and 2) connecting us to KOL doctors in hospitals + Medical Directors of pharma."