Biotech Pandorum will leverage Wipro’s AI capabilities for faster development of advanced therapeutics and regenerative medicine to improve patient outcomes.

Wipro Ltd, a global IT, consulting and business process services company, and Pandorum Technologies, a biotech working in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, have announced they have embarked on a long-term partnership. Together the companies plan to focus on development of technologies that will shorten time-to-market and maximise patient outcome during R&D and clinical trials of regenerative medicine.

Longevity.Technology: The partnership’s initial focus of collaboration will be on a bioengineered liquid cornea, but is set to expand across the product pipeline including lung and liver regenerative tissues. More than 12.7 million people are waiting for a corneal transplant globally, but more than half the donated corneas do not meet standards for transplant [1]. Using a biomimetic bioengineered hydrogel, Pandorum’s liquid cornea is a regenerative treatment that uses a biopolymer to act as a sacrificial matrix for accelerating the growth of host tissue to cover the wound site. The trigger for this growth is provided by a bioactive component: exosomes which are delivered to the wound site, embedded in the biopolymeric matrix. Derived from the population of predominant cell types in the cornea, the exosomes are programmed to promote scarless wound healing, restoring vision, which is the primary function of the cornea and eye. Currently, Pandorum is performing pre-clinical animal trials and aiming towards human clinical trials.

Wipro Holmes AI-based decision support solution aims to provide insights on the potential outcomes of specific formulations, apply advanced algorithms to predict and improve the efficacy of therapeutics and help in clinical study design.

The combined vision of Pandorum and Wipro is to build an AI system that learns from the multi-dimensional data coming out of Pandorum’s R&D pipeline at the cellular, tissue (organoid) and organ levels, and provides actionable insights. Wipro Holmes’ capability in deriving insights from phenotypes, genotypes and clinical progression assessments will complement Pandorum’s capabilities in tissue regeneration and regenerative medicine. Pandorum is on the cusp of entering clinical stage, and its partnership with Wipro, merging Pandorum’s expertise and AI, will, the two companies hope, unlock the power of regenerative medicine.

“By embracing digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, life sciences organizations can accelerate innovation, transform business processes and fuel growth. In life sciences R&D, AI is particularly valuable to rapidly discover new formulations, expedite therapeutic development and bring life-saving therapies to market faster, thereby positively influencing human health. With our domain and AI expertise, we stand ready to enable our health and life sciences clients to serve their stakeholders better,” said Rajan Kohli, President and Managing Partner, iDEAS, Wipro Ltd [2].

“We’re living in a time of unprecedented progress in biology, data science and machine learning,” said Tuhin Bhowmick, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer, Pandorum. “We are building a framework to converge these three fields, in order to harness the potential of tissue reprogramming to the fullest and address global unmet clinical needs, such as corneal blindness [and] liver diseases. In the end, what matters most is to be able to alleviate the suffering of the patients. Together with Wipro, we hope to accelerate this process [2].”

“Regenerative medicine is an alternative option for many patients awaiting donors for transplant. We are excited to bring Wipro Holmes’ advanced AI capabilities to Pandorum, which will accelerate the development of successful regenerative therapeutics and enable better outcomes for the patients. Our focus on developing explainable AI and built-in capabilities for data privacy makes Wipro Holmes the most suitable for life sciences R&D and clinical trials,” commented Harmeet Chauhan, Global Head – Engineering and R&D, Wipro Ltd [2].

Pandorum’s 3D-cultured organoids are also set to benefit from the partnership; not only are its 3D hepatocyte spheroids emerging as a platform for drug screening and disease modelling, but also have a potential in regenerative medicine and therapy. 3D bioprinted vascularised mini-organ or organ patches have the potential of engrafting on to the host tissue upon transplantation and the company is currently developing a prototype.

The new partnership is also set to respond to post-COVID trauma with its cell-free exosome therapy platform, creating therapeutic grade extracellular vesicles (EVs) with specific cargo-loaded proteins for healing lung tissue. This proprietary tech platform will use scalable mesechymal stem cell expansion and an optimised culture condition for the MSCs; the platform will select therapeutically-enriched EVs to use in regenerative therapy.