Deep Medical Therapeutics (DMT)

Africa has the fastest-growing population, bears 25% of the global disease burden, yet only contributes to 3% of the global genomic data used for drug development and only 2.5% of global clinical trials. We, therefore, risk receiving low efficacy drugs and vaccines as our data is not sufficiently incorporated in the R&D process. 

DMT is building an AI-driven, Amazon-like marketplace for African health data to stimulate the supply and accelerate access to data and insights. Our platform will ensure that regulatory and ethical clearance is obtained for the shared data and will empower data providers with access to a new revenue stream. Our current focus is on building an AI platform that can pool data from various data providers, can predict future COVID-19 Variants of Concern, and subsequently identify potential vaccine and drug targets for upstream development by pharma and biotech companies.

Africa has the fastest-growing population, bears 25% of the global disease burden, yet only contributes to 3% of global genomic data and 2.5% of the participants for pharma clinical trials. We, therefore, risk receiving low-efficacy drugs and vaccines. In Africa, every year infectious diseases account for over 227 million years of healthy life lost.  HIV, TB, Diabetes, and Malaria alone infect over 257 million Africans, kill 1.69 million, and costs the economy $93.31 billion annually. 

The market for digitized African health data (patient records, genomic data, insurance claims, chemical compounds for potential pharmaceuticals, etc.) is still nascent and the existing data is segmented in hospitals, clinics, university researchers, NGOs, etc. This data is important for government, scientists, and pharmaceutical companies to:

• Understand the evolutionary behavior of the diseases 
• Identify existing drugs that can be repurposed for diseases 
• Enable pharmaceutical companies to develop effective drugs and vaccines tailored for the African population 

Our platform empowers these stakeholders with the ability to collaborate and share health data securely and ethically, create new revenue streams for the data partners, and unlock meaningful insights for drug and vaccine development tailored for the African population.

DMT is building an AI-driven, Amazon-like marketplace for African health data to stimulate the supply and accelerate access to data and insights that can contribute to vaccine and drug development tailored for the African population. Our platform will ensure that regulatory and ethical clearance is obtained for the shared data and will empower data providers to be compensated. Verified data providers can upload, share and monetize their health data. Verified platform members can thus access aggregated health data from across Africa segmented by disease/virus area, and leverage our AI for tailored insights.

Our current focus is on building an AI platform that can pool data from various data providers, predict future COVID-19 Variants of Concern (VOC) and subsequently identify potential vaccine and drug targets for upstream development by pharma and biotech companies. Our platform pools African genomic data uploaded on GISAID and uses AI to identify, track and predict unique SARS-CoV-2 genetic mutations that would develop into VOC. Our platform then uses an additional AI algorithm and a library of drug targets provided by one of our data partners to identify potential drug targets that can be used as therapeutics for the VOC identified.

DMT’s solution will ultimately benefit the 1.3 billion Africans who are 11.5 x per 100,000 population more likely to die from communicable diseases in Africa than a European. Our system will enable the efficient development of drugs and vaccines tailored for the African genome, thus helping reduce the number of fatalities. 

African has historically not been a primary target market for pharma companies.  In addition, only 2.5% of global clinical trials are conducted in Africa, which means that majority of the pharmaceuticals consumed by Africans are not optimized for their genome. Regulatory bodies such as the FDA are now seeking to implement new regulations that state that for a drug to be used in that particular population, clinical trials/health data for that population must be incorporated in their studies.

As seen with COVID-19 and the 501Y.V2 (Beta) Variant of Concern (VOC) that emerged in South Africa, an Africa problem is a Global problem. The variant stalled vaccination progress by reducing efficacy and has now spread to more than 68 countries. It is therefore imperative that African data is considered when drugs and vaccines are developed. We know there is a need, a market opportunity and are building a solution by Africans for Africans that will enable large pharma and other stakeholders to access more easily the data required to develop more effective drugs and vaccines for Africans.

The stakeholders that would use the DMT platform include institutions, organizations, researchers, pharmaceutical/ biotech companies, and governments. We have held interviews with two large pharmaceutical companies, the African Union - NEPAD, South African National Biodiversity Institute, University of Zimbabwe, University of Cape Town, H3D, and the National Health Laboratory Services of South Africa. We are also an affiliate member of the Avoca Quality Consortium which is a global leader in the implementation of clinical trial quality. 

From the data we have gathered, we have identified the following needs for our three key stakeholders:

1. Universities:

• A secure platform to share health data with its metadata for collaboration, publications, funding opportunities and revenue generation.

2. Governments:

• Data-informed decision making concerning disease outbreaks e.g. Ebola and COVID-19
• Data to inform drug and vaccine procurement ultimately saving country money through minimizing wastage (e.g. procuring vaccines that have high efficacy based on the strains circulating locally)
• Support to reduce the transmission and spread of disease by providing data for effective intervention measures.

3. Pharmaceutical companies:

• Access to genomic data insights from Africa
• Support with the clinical trial site and candidate selection 
• To reduce up to 50% on the cost of development of drug or vaccine
• To Save between 6-11 years on time to market for a drug or vaccine development by using intelligent tools to identify potential targets.
•  To assess vaccine efficacy and enable pharmaceutical companies to locally develop drugs and vaccines.

The lack of access to and understanding of African health data threatens disease surveillance and the efficient development of pharmaceuticals. Our platform provides a mechanism to stimulate the supply of high-quality data by incentivizing data providers. Pharmaceutical companies are then incentivized to make use of our AI-platform as they will gain access to this high-quality data that will improve their efficiency of drug and vaccine development.  For our first use case, our solution will predict future SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern which we will share with drug research facilities (our partner) to support drug target identification and to support antibody design. 

DMT is in the process of building and testing a software platform that can generate intelligent epidemiology insights for COVID-19 by enabling the prediction of novel VOCs and subsequently the efficient development of vaccines optimized for the Africa population.  

We have two committed data providers and one data partner. The University of Zimbabwe has just operationalized its new whole-genome sequencing lab and will be giving us access to COVID-19 WGS data with anonymized patient metadata. Our data partner, a drug research facility, is providing access to their drug target library and using our AI software to support them in prioritizing targets.  A research institute in Botswana will also be using our findings regarding VOC to support them in the identification of antibodies and the development of a low-cost vaccine.

In the future, we will branch off into other disease areas using the same platform.

The DMT platform is the first of its kind on the continent.  It is the Amazon for African health data insights. Our business model will 1) scale access to, and aggregate ethically sourced and regulated genomic data and 2) use AI to create actionable health data intelligence that can be customized according to customer’s needs. By scaling up data access we can build a more resilient, data-informed, public health ecosystem in Africa.

 COVID-19 is our first use case. Our software can predict future Variants of Concern by simulating and calculating the effects of different amino acid changes on the receptor-binding domain on the virus’ binding kinetics.  Our computational models are benchmarked against experimental data to improve their accuracy. Our platform uses an additional AI algorithm and a library of drug targets provided by one of our data partners to identify potential drug targets that can be used as therapeutics for the VOC identified. We are also sharing our insights with a research institute in Botswana to support them in the identification of antibodies and the development of a low-cost vaccine. Ultimately, our platform will empower governments to procure the most effective vaccines based on the viral strains circulating within their population and will also enable pharma to efficiently develop vaccines and therapeutics for future COVID-19 VOCs. If we can accomplish this for COVID-19 it could be a gamechanger for how we combat it as was as future diseases.

At present, the DMT platform currently serves 4 data providers which are composed of researchers from 3 Universities and 1 Drug development organization based in South Africa and Zimbabwe. We are also in the process of securing a partnership with a research institute based in Botswana.  We envision that the work we are doing with them will empower their respective target markets while allowing us to build a robust model that can be scaled to the rest of Africa.

1 Year: In the next year, we aim to scale our reach to the rest of Africa focussing solely on the COVID-19  use case to build a robust model. It is estimated that over 5.12 million Africans have been infected with COVID-19 which has resulted in 135,872  deaths ( as of 15 June 2021). Africa is at high risk of being left behind when it comes to vaccinating its population. We need 1.5 billion vaccine doses to immunize 60% of its 1.3 billion inhabitants. However, the emergence of Variants of Concern threatens to stall our progress on vaccination.

5 Years: In 5 years we would like to scale our intelligent software to cater for other diseases in Africa such as HIV, TB, Malaria, and other future outbreaks that we do not yet know of. We would also like to have >300 data providers on the platform enabling us to obtain meaningful insights for drug and vaccine development at a faster rate.

Our Impact is tied to implementation that requires collaboration. We are building partnerships with the African Union, The South African National Health Services, African universities and pharmaceutical companies to reach scale and unlock insights that are used. 

Indicators used to measure our impact and track our short- and long-term progress (aligning with our theory of change) include: 

1. Number of data providers: 3

2. Number of data partners: 1

3. Number of disease areas available on the platform: 1 

4. The robustness of our predictive AI platform: Our SARS-CoV-2 AI model can predict Variants of Concern at over a 50% accuracy rate.

5. Support SDG 3.3 - Share actionable insights from data collected that can be used for R&D of drugs & vaccines that reduce the number of new HIV infections, TB and Malaria incidence per 1,000 uninfected population in Africa.

6. SDG 3.4 – Share actionable insights from data collected that can be used for R&D of drugs that reduce mortality rate attributed to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes or chronic respiratory disease in Africa

7. Contribute to the development of the local pharmaceutical industry by sharing unique insights tailored to the African population so that (SDG 3.b.1) medicines and vaccines can be manufactured locally and e affordable. 

8. Partner with global NGOs to support SDG 3.d.1 and share African health data insights to increase the International Health Regulations (IHR) capacity and health emergency preparedness

2 full time

7 part-time

Dineo Lioma is an engineer, biotech innovator and businesswoman who plans to make a positive impact on the continent. Ms. Lioma is the CEO of Deep Medical Therapeutics. She holds an MPhil in Micro- and Nanotechnology Enterprise from the University of Cambridge; a BSc in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering and a second Master’s Degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. Dineo was also the co-founder of CapeBio Technologies, a company that locally develops and manufactures enzymes used for DNA Analysis. 

Byeronie Epstein is the COO of Deep Medical Therapeutics. Byeronie has leadership experience in driving complex multi-stakeholder projects. She has mobilized over 27 multinationals that have combined revenue of over $2 trillion to implement transport solutions in cities. She has also been the liaison to organizations like the World Bank and has implemented projects relating to sustainability in Europe, South America, North America, and Australia. Byeronie has a master’s in Engineering for Sustainable Development from the University of Cambridge and a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town.

The team also has contracted experts in Genomics, Bioinformatics, Artificial Intelligence and Virology, and Molecular Biology who have worked for organizations such as  IBM, University of the Free State, South African National Bioinformatics Institute, African CDC, Inqaba Biotec, and Wellcome Trust. However, after raising sufficient funds we are looking to recruit the experts on a full-time staff basis to expedite our progress.

DMT is a women-founded and led company that is cultivating a community focused on our shared values of:

1. Innovation: We continually foster a sense of innovation and a culture of curiosity. Our solutions empower African governments, scientists and pharmaceutical companies to gain insights into and treat new and existing diseases. 

2. Collaboration: We believe that true value and impact comes from the power of collaboration. Working with the right partners can enable us to solve Africas toughest healthcare challenges.  We are building a diverse team and set of partners to leverage our differences to create groundbreaking solutions and involve the communities we aim to serve. We are fostering an environment in which everyone feels valued and respected.

 3. Integrity: Trust, honesty, and transparency are key to accomplish our mission. We uphold global ethical standards and protect all data. We promote accountability and constantly strive to build trust with our community, partners, and stakeholders by remaining transparent. We also believe in designing our policies, practices, and resources to provide people of all backgrounds an opportunity to thrive. 

DMT is an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration and will not be discriminated against based on race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, ancestry, or national or ethnic origin.

Through DMT’s core values of Innovation, Collaboration, and Integrity we strive to uphold the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion and are committed to anti-racism in all the work we do. 

We believe that the values of Solve and DMT align and being selected would add credibility to our ambitious concept and this would support us in recruiting data providers/users. Given the challenges we are faced with and that we believe collaboration with the right partners is a key to our success we know the 9 months of personalized support from Solve's community will be invaluable. 

Receiving access to funding in grants will help accelerate our platform development as we could then pay for the resources to progress faster. Given that COVID-19 is time-sensitive, this is important. 

Receiving success to in-kind resources such as legal services from Solve Member and partner organizations will be very helpful given the sensitive and regulatory nature of health data and sharing it internationally. Legal services are expensive and we need to create a solid foundation and ensure all regulatory risks are understood and dealt with from the beginning. 

As mentioned in our barriers dealing with health data is sensitive and there are many regulatory constraints, especially with genomic data. Although we have a health data sharing expert who is providing us with some of their time it would be valuable to receive legal advice on the data sharing policy that we are developing for DMT and when it comes to the commercialization of the data. 

We are in the process of building our team and could use support on sourcing additional talent. Having a strong technology partner who can advise us on our design and how to improve on it would be helpful. 

We believe that we have not yet fully maximized on our business model and potential for revenue. We could use some support on further refining our business model.

Lastly, the MIT Solve is highly connected to different stakeholders in the Pharma, Biotech, Research and NGO space who can potentially become platform users or data providers. These organizations could also help us refine how we measure our impact as an organization.

As mentioned in our previous answers we believe collaboration is needed to realize our vision. In addition to our current partners, we would like to partner with the organizations below.

Amazon: We are already working with Amazon Web Services through their start-up migration funding. They have also said when we are ready they will apply to the NVIDIA accelerator for us.

Bill and Melinda Gates: The computing power and storage required to scale this solution is substantial. Given that we intend for our work around COVID to be made publicly available we require some grant funding to support the initial setup.

Novartis Foundation: This is one of the most digitally advanced and innovative pharma companies. If there were able to provide us with grant funding and access to speak with their data scientists this would help accelerate our work forward.

University of Cambridge: They have are part of the UK COG platform and have experts in this field we could leverage for advisors and knowledge when developing the AI software. Additionally, we would like to engage with the Prabakaran Group, the Micklem Lab, and the Pathogen Dynamics group which focus on applying machine learning to big genomic data, genetics, and the epidemiology of infectious diseases. 

Pfizer: They would be a key stakeholder and could hopefully become a platform members. As one of the pharmaceuticals that have produced a COVID-19 vaccine, our initial software could be of immediate value to them.

DMT is building an AI-driven, Amazon-like marketplace for African health data to stimulate the supply and accelerate access to data and insights that can contribute to vaccine and drug development tailored for the African population. Africa only contributes to 3% of global genomic data used for drug development and only participates in 2.5% of clinical trials. We, therefore, risk receiving low efficacy drugs and vaccines. Many African Americans share the same ancestry as Africans, as a result, pharmaceuticals and vaccines that are developed based on African data are more likely to be successful on them. 

Our platform will enable pharmaceutical companies to develop effective drugs and vaccines tailored for the African population, which will ultimately help African Americans lead a better quality of life.

We will use the prize money to further refine our prototype  as follows:

Stage 1 6 Months: Build AI and test prototype: $92,473.51 [Grant funding]

• Improve on building a secure platform for data providers and partners to upload and share data.
• Secure more data partners amd providers
• Gather more open-source data for MVP
• Build MVP of the platform that can predict future Sars-Cov-2 Variants of concern
• Refine AI model to increase prediction accuracy
• Use platform to identify preclinical drug and vaccine targets for COVID-19 tailored for the African population

DMT is building an AI-driven, Amazon-like marketplace for African health data to stimulate the supply and accelerate access to data insights that can contribute to vaccine and drug development tailored for Africans. 

DMT’s solution will benefit the 1.3 billion Africans who are 11.5x per 100,000 population more likely to die from communicable diseases in Africa than a European. Our platform will play a key role in achieving SDG 3.

We are initially focusing on COVID-19. As seen with the 501Y.V2 Variant of Concern that emerged in South Africa, an African problem is a Global problem. The variant stalled vaccination progress by reducing efficacy and has now spread to more than 68 countries. 

Africa contributes to 3% of global genomic data used for drug development and participates in 2.5% of global clinical trials. We, therefore, risk receiving low efficacy drugs and vaccines. 

Our AI platform enables pharmaceutical companies to develop effective drugs and vaccines for Africans. This will support Africans to have a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future.

We will use the prize money to refine our prototype:

Stage 1 - 6 Months: Build AI and test prototype: $92,473.51

• Improve on building a secure platform for data providers and partners to upload and share data.
• Secure more data partners and providers
• Gather more open-source data for MVP
• Build MVP of the platform that can predict future SARS-CoV-2 VOCs
• Refine AI model to increase prediction accuracy
• Use platform to identify preclinical drug and vaccine targets for COVID-19 tailored for the African population

Africa has the fastest-growing population, bears 25% of the global disease burden, yet only contributes to 3% of global genomic data used for drug development and only participates in 2.5% of global clinical trials. We, therefore, risk receiving low efficacy drugs and vaccines. Every year infectious diseases account for over 227 million years of healthy life lost and produce an annual productivity loss of over $800 billion.  HIV, TB, Diabetes and Malaria alone infect over 257 million Africans, kill 1.69 million and costs the African economy $93.31 billion annually. 

DMT is building an AI-driven, Amazon-like marketplace for African health data to stimulate the supply and accelerate access to data and insights that can contribute to vaccine and drug development tailored for the African population.Our initial focus is on COVID-19 in which our platform will identify future Variants of Concern and ultimately support pharmaceutical companies to efficiently identify potential drugs and vaccines for the disease tailored to the African population. The insights that will be shared on our platform will also be very valuable for Governments and NGO's as they need:

• Data-informed decision making concerning disease outbreaks e.g. Ebola and COVID-19
• Data to inform drug and vaccine procurement ultimately saving country money through minimizing wastage (e.g. procuring vaccines that have high efficacy based on the strains circulating locally)
• Support to reduce the transmission and spread of disease by providing data for effective intervention measures.

We will use the prize money to further refine our prototype  as follows:

Stage 1 6 Months: Build AI and test prototype: $92,473.51 [Grant funding]

• Improve on building a secure platform for data providers and partners to upload and share data.
• Secure more data partners and providers
• Gather more open-source data for MVP
• Build MVP of the platform that can predict future Sars-Cov-2 Variants of concern
• Refine AI model to increase prediction accuracy
• Use platform to identify preclinical drug and vaccine targets for COVID-19 tailored for the African population

In future, we will branch off into other disease areas such as HIV, TB, Malaria, Ebola, Lassa Virus Fever etc .to ensure that disease outbreaks are minimized and efficiently rectified.