Tempus, United Therapeutics Team Up on Pulmonary Hypertension Detection

Tempus AI Inc. is joining forces with United Therapeutics Corporation (UT) to develop and investigate artificial intelligence (AI)-based medical device software to detect patients at risk of suffering from undiagnosed pulmonary hypertension (PH). 

PH is a fatal, progressive disease of the heart and lungs that affects approximately 1% of the population.¹ Despite an increasing number of available treatments for the disease, the detection or clinical diagnosis of PH is typically delayed for two or more years.² To help solve this problem, Tempus built an algorithm that automatically analyzes the results of a 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) to identify at-risk PH patients who need further clinical evaluation. The initial findings from this work were presented at a conference this past spring.

Tempus’ research and development program will leverage Tempus Next, the company’s AI-enabled care pathway intelligence solution, to facilitate the algorithm’s deployment at participating centers. Clinicians will evaluate its ability to detect patients at risk of undiagnosed PH, and to track clinical outcomes of patients who are identified for further evaluation, within a prospective clinical study at up to 60 centers. Tempus and UT plan to collaborate on this study to investigate the clinical impact of this technology and gain new insights into the detection and diagnosis of PH. Tempus expects to engage with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to align on regulatory requirements and U.S. Food and Drug Administration expectations about validating the AI-based algorithm. 

“We aim to set a new standard for identifying patients with pulmonary hypertension by getting novel technology into the hands of clinicians to enable earlier diagnosis and more effective disease management,” said Brandon Fornwalt, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president of Cardiology at Tempus. “Exploring this in a prospective multicenter study brings us one step closer to realizing the dream of data-driven precision medicine.”

Tempus is a technology company advancing precision medicine through the practical application of artificial intelligence in healthcare. With one of the world’s largest libraries of multimodal data, and an operating system to make that data accessible and useful, Tempus provides AI-enabled precision medicine solutions to physicians to deliver personalized patient care and in parallel facilitates discovery, development and delivery of optimal therapeutics. The goal is for each patient to benefit from the treatment of others who came before by providing physicians with tools that learn as the company gathers more data. 

References
^1,2 European Heart Journal, Volume 43, Issue 38, 7 October 2022, Pages 3618–3731, https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehac237