Qureight Assembles Global Experts for AI-Driven Attack on Pulmonary Hypertension

CAMBRIDGE, England – May 05, 2026 – In a strategic move poised to reshape the landscape of lung disease research, imaging CRO Qureight has announced the formation of a high-powered Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) dedicated to pulmonary hypertension (PH). The Cambridge-based company, which specializes in leveraging artificial intelligence for clinical trials, has enlisted a "dream team" of seven world-renowned clinicians and researchers to guide its development of AI models aimed at accelerating the approval of new therapies for this devastating condition.

The initiative brings together cutting-edge technology and unparalleled human expertise to address a critical unmet need. Pulmonary hypertension, a group of serious conditions defined by dangerously high blood pressure in the lungs, remains notoriously difficult to diagnose and monitor. By developing non-invasive AI-driven tools, Qureight and its new board of advisors aim to transform how PH is understood and treated, offering hope to patients who currently face limited options and arduous diagnostic procedures.

Beyond the Catheter: Tackling a Cruel Disease

For patients with pulmonary hypertension, the journey is often fraught with challenges long before treatment can even begin. The condition can lead to heart failure and is ultimately fatal, yet its symptoms—such as shortness of breath and fatigue—are non-specific, frequently leading to late-stage diagnoses.

The gold standard for confirming a PH diagnosis and monitoring its progression is right heart catheterization (RHC). This invasive procedure involves threading a catheter through a vein into the right side of the heart and pulmonary artery to directly measure pressures. While accurate, RHC is costly, resource-intensive, carries inherent risks, and cannot be performed frequently, limiting its utility for tracking a patient's response to therapy in real-time.

This diagnostic bottleneck creates significant hurdles for pharmaceutical companies developing new treatments. Clinical trials require precise, reliable methods to stratify patients based on disease severity and to measure the effectiveness of a potential new drug. The reliance on invasive and infrequent measurements slows down research, increases costs, and makes it harder to bring life-saving therapies to market. The demand for robust, non-invasive alternatives is not just a matter of convenience; it is a critical chokepoint in the fight against a disease with a huge unmet medical need.

AI Enters the Fight: Reading the Lungs' Secrets

This is the challenge Qureight aims to solve with its proprietary AI platform. The company is developing deep learning models that can analyze routine computed tomography (CT) scans—a much less invasive and more common imaging procedure—to extract crucial information about the lung's vasculature and structure.

One of its flagship models, Vascul8™, has already shown significant promise. In a peer-reviewed study, the AI tool demonstrated an ability to predict disease severity and identify patients at risk of residual PH after surgery for a specific subtype, chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH). By quantifying changes in lung blood volumes from a standard CT scan, the model provides a powerful, non-invasive biomarker. This allows researchers to "see" the disease's impact in a way that was previously only possible through invasive means.

The goal is to expand this capability across the spectrum of PH conditions. The AI models are being trained to provide "precision endpoints" for clinical trials—quantifiable metrics that can reliably assess baseline disease severity, stratify patients into appropriate trial arms, and detect subtle changes over time that indicate a response to treatment. This could dramatically accelerate trial timelines and reduce the reliance on placebo groups, potentially by enabling the use of "synthetic control arms" built from curated historical data.

A 'Dream Team' to Guide the Technology

Technology alone, however, is not enough. To ensure its AI models are clinically relevant and address the most pressing questions in PH research, Qureight has assembled a formidable Scientific Advisory Board. The seven members represent a who's who of global leadership in the field, spanning expertise from France, Germany, the UK, and the United States.

The board includes figures like Dr. Marc Humbert, a world-leading specialist who directs the French Pulmonary Hypertension Reference Centre and has built one of the world's largest PH patient registries. Also on board is Dr. Steven Nathan of Inova Fairfax Hospital, who has served on multiple FDA advisory boards and steering committees for PH clinical trials. They are joined by other luminaries such as Dr. Joanna Pepke-Zaba, a pioneer of PH services in the UK, and Professor Ardeschir Ghofrani, a founding member of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute.

This collaboration between data scientists and master clinicians is the core of Qureight's strategy. The SAB will provide invaluable guidance on the nuances of PH pathophysiology, help validate the AI models against established clinical truths, and ensure the technology is focused on solving real-world problems faced by both patients and researchers.

Dr. Simon Walsh, Qureight’s Chief Scientific Officer, commented on the appointments in the company’s announcement: “We are delighted to welcome these globally recognised leaders in pulmonary hypertension to our Scientific Advisory Board. Their insight will be instrumental as we advance our quantitative imaging models to address critical gaps in PH clinical trial design — particularly around non-invasive disease assessment, patient stratification, and treatment response monitoring. Our goal is to bring greater precision and biological clarity to PH trials, accelerating the development of much-needed therapies for patients.”

Navigating the Future of AI in Medicine

Qureight's initiative is emblematic of a broader shift in medicine, where AI is moving from a theoretical concept to a practical tool in drug development and diagnostics. However, the path from an innovative algorithm to a widely accepted clinical tool is complex and heavily regulated.

Companies developing AI as a Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) must navigate a rigorous regulatory landscape governed by bodies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Union's new AI Act. These frameworks demand not only proof of the technology's accuracy but also transparency in its workings, robust data governance, mitigation of bias, and a plan for managing the software's entire lifecycle. Gaining regulatory clearance is a critical step for these AI-driven endpoints to be accepted in pivotal clinical trials that lead to drug approvals.

By assembling a board of experts with deep regulatory and clinical trial experience, Qureight is not only enhancing its scientific approach but also strategically positioning itself to meet these regulatory challenges. The credibility of the SAB members lends significant weight to the validity of the AI-powered biomarkers they help develop, potentially smoothing the path for their adoption by pharmaceutical partners and regulatory agencies. This fusion of computational power and clinical wisdom could set a new standard for how complex diseases are studied, ultimately bringing new treatments to the patients who need them most.