New University of Liverpool-US collaboration to accelerate drug discovery using AI

Artificial Intelligence will be used to accelerate new medicine discovery in a University of Liverpool partnership secured following Mayor Steve Rotheram's US trade mission.

The University of Liverpool will work with Boston-based BPGbio, Inc. to harness large-scale healthcare data to accelerate the development of new treatments.

The collaboration, conducted through the University's Civic HealthTech Innovation Zone (CHI-Zone), will use advanced computer techniques to analyse a wide range of health information - such as medical scans, lab results, and detailed biological data about genes and proteins - alongside patient outcomes. Scientists hope to uncover cause-and-effect links in disease processes that could point to new drugs.

Professor Iain Buchan, Professor Claire Eyres and Dr Peter Green from the University of Liverpool joined Mayor Rotheram in a high-level meeting with BPGbio President and CEO Dr Niven Narain and colleagues during a Liverpool City Region trade mission to Boston in October 2024.

The success of the trip has led to the latest investment, which will create jobs in the region and further strengthen the University of Liverpool and city region's place in the global health-tech sector.

BPGbio, Inc. is a leading US company that uses AI to develop new medicines. The collaboration will significantly expand and enhance its NAi® 'Bayesian AI' platform - an advanced AI system designed to identify what drives diseases. Led by an interdisciplinary team at the University of Liverpool, the collaboration will advance the platform's speed, scalability, and utility across drug discovery and precision healthcare.

Professor Iain Buchan, W.H. Duncan Chair in Public Health Systems, Associate Pro Vice Chancellor for Innovation, Director of Civic Health Innovation Labs, and Principal Investigator of the program, added: "The CHI-Zone is bringing together industry and civic partners to create and evaluate data-intensive solutions to some of society's most challenging health problems.Biology and healthcare urgently need AI systems that can generate understanding how diseases work, not just correlations. Our collaboration with BPGbio, Inc. brings together cutting-edge Bayesian computation, multi-omics research, and secure data environments to deliver exactly that. This is the blueprint for the next generation of precision medicine."

Niven R. Narain, Ph.D., President and CEO, BPGbio said: "NAi® has already helped us discover actionable drug targets and advance new therapies in oncology, mitochondrial disease, and neurology. This collaboration with the University of Liverpool will take the platform to a new level-as omic data generation has now advanced to the signal cell level, where causality is ideally suited to make massive advancements.

"By combining BPGbio's biology-first philosophy with Liverpool's unmatched expertise in causal inference and computational science, we are building the future of mechanism-based drug discovery and an informed data driven healthcare ecosystem. Medicine and healthcare solutions fail not because of a lack of data, but instead because we don't let human biology guide the path, since we are all very different and nothing should be a one size fits all solution"

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said: "This partnership is a direct outcome of our visit to the US and another strong example of growing American investment in the Liverpool City Region - and the importance of bilateral relationships.

"Following in the footsteps of companies like Kyndryl, which launched its UK hub in Liverpool last year, this is a major vote of confidence in our universities, our talent, and our ambition to become a global leader in health and life sciences.

"My ambition is for the Liverpool City Region to be the global home of AI for Good - not chasing AI for its own sake, but backing innovation that genuinely improves the health of our people, strengthens our communities, and creates high-quality jobs.

"Global businesses are recognising what we already know: the Liverpool City Region is not just open for business - it's open for innovation."

The project invests in a multidisciplinary cohort of early-career University of Liverpool biodata researchers as well as leading experts:

The Civic HealthTech Innovation Zone (CHI-Zone) is funded by the Liverpool City Region Life Sciences Innovation Zone Programme which forms part of the Government's national Investment Zone Programme, positioning the city region as a powerhouse for health and life sciences innovation.