stubbi • Jan 13, 2025
Advancing Clinical Trial Optimization with Quantum Computing: Ingenii’s Competition on Aqora Improves Existing Solutions
Recently, Aqora has achieved a major milestone with the conclusion of its very first Quantum competition. We built Aqora with the intention of creating a platform that drives innovation in quantum computing—and the remarkable contributions to this competition by our users show that vision coming to life. We are excited to have received several high-quality submissions related to the problem of clinical trial optimization.
The two winning solutions even surpassed the internal benchmark quantum algorithms previously developed by Ingenii's own quantum experts, showcasing the exceptional talent within the competition.
Solving Problems Through Quantum Competitions
Competitions provide a great opportunity for driving innovation and solving complex problems. By putting together a group of experts with technical expertise, these competitions allow for creativity and out-of-the-box solutions to arise. This not only motivates participants to strive for excellence but it also encourages further advancements than those achieved in non-competitive environments.
For instance, the DARPA Grand Challenge aimed to accelerate the development of fully autonomous vehicles capable of navigating both on and off roads. As a result of this challenge, it became instrumental in laying the foundation for fleets of autonomous cars and other ground vehicles that are now becoming a reality in the 21st century.
Similarly, the Netflix prize competition exemplified the power of collective problem-solving. By challenging participants to improve the company’s movie recommendation algorithm, it improved the company’s solution on predictive modeling and data science. This showcased the value of open innovation— even when the solution was not implemented in the end.
In a more recent example, the developers of Alphafold AI won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry after debuting this tool in the 2018 Critical Assessment of Protein Structure Prediction (CASP) Challenge. Alphafold made significant strides in accurately predicting protein structures, an issue that has stumped scientists for over 50 years. Alphafold's success exemplifies the role of competition in driving innovation and advancing research.
The impact becomes even greater when considering quantum computing. The field in itself demands a collaborative yet competitive environment to discover transformative solutions. Through quantum competitions, we can inspire new innovations, harness talents, and empower changes in industries like energy, pharmaceuticals, cybersecurity, and more.
Quantum competitions create an ecosystem for experts to collaborate and for revolutionary ideas to emerge. It is an opportunity for us to shape the future of reality, one challenge at a time.
The Clinical Trial Optimization Competition
In collaboration with Ingenii, a leading deep-tech company specializing in quantum machine learning solutions for life sciences, we hosted a competition addressing a critical challenge within the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry.
The competition took place online from April 2, 2024, to September 30, 2024, with the objective of optimizing patient stratification in clinical trials.
The Problem Faced
On average, clinical trials for drugs incur costs of $1 billion, with a staggering failure rate of at least 70%. These inefficiencies not only burden the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry but also delay a patient’s access to potentially life-saving medications.
Currently, clinical trials use the method of randomized trials to recruit a group of patients and split them into two groups— a control group and a treatment group. However, this randomization often leads to imbalances in critical patient attributes, making it difficult to achieve statistically significant results on a drug’s efficacy.
The Task
To address this challenge, participants were tasked with developing a solution based on the public dataset on Clinical Trials by Mayo Clinic, leveraging quantum computing algorithms.
The goal was to minimize the discrepancy between any two groups in the weighted sum of the first and second moments of the covariates.
The competition was moderated by Laia Domingo, Ph.D, Chief Science Officer of Ingenii alongside Jannes, Co-founder and CEO of Aqora.
Outcome and Results
The competition yielded impressive outcomes, showcasing the technical expertise and creativity of the participants. Each of them delivered a unique perspective, proposing innovative quantum-based solutions to tackle the issue.
Through Aqora’s live leaderboard system, each solution was fairly evaluated based on whether it was able to lower the discrepancy gap between patient groups. Higher scores indicated lower discrepancies.
Here were the standout winning approaches by our participants:
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Julien Mellaerts (1st Prize): This solution is a custom hybrid quantum-classical workflow that combines D-Wave’s quantum processing unit and a classical algorithm to optimize the use of classical and quantum resources. This approach reduces time complexity while maintaining optimal accuracy of patient stratification.
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Peter Yang (2nd Prize): A hybrid quantum-classical algorithm using D-Wave hybrid CQM sampler to solve the quadratic-constrained optimization problem. This approach leverages the computational power of quantum computing and the flexible formulation of classical solvers.
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Oleksii Adamov (3rd Prize): This solution integrates a custom Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) with a smart clustering strategy to reduce problem size and optimize qubit usage.
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David Esteban Bernal Neira & the SECQUOIA Team (Special Prize): The hybrid approach combines Graver Augmented Multistart Algorithm (GAMA) with quantum annealing to find feasible solutions and compute elements of Graver basis, optimizing the use of classical and quantum resources.
Key Performance Insights
To assess the effectiveness of the participants’ solution, it was tested using different patient sizes of 10, 20, 50, 80, 100, 150 and 200. All of the solutions were benchmarked against Gurobi, a leading classical software used to solve issues related to optimization.
Here are the key findings:
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Random assigning of patients led to significant discrepancies, emphasizing the importance of optimization for creating balanced clinical trial groups.
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While classical solvers like Gurobi offer precision, it is not viable in terms of scalability due to long execution times.
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Hybrid and quantum-inspired methods are appealing for large-scale applications as they balance accuracy and efficiency well.
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The winning approaches by Julien and Peter also improved over the existing solution developed by Ingenii with at least a four-time improvement in the discrepancy gap.
Read the full case study here: Clinical Trial Optimization Success Story
Why These Results Matter
At Aqora, we are dedicated to empowering the global quantum computing community through quantum competitions and driving meaningful real-world impact through industry adoption of quantum technology.
This competition demonstrates the potential of applying quantum machine learning to real-world use cases in life sciences.
Additionally, it highlights the immense potential of quantum competitions to create impactful solutions, accelerate progress, and unlock new possibilities for solving meaningful challenges.
This success highlights the potential of quantum computing as a powerful tool for tackling complex challenges in improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of drug development in the healthcare industry.
For 200 patients, the Kerberos and Tabu samplers provide about 4 times smaller discrepancy than the HybridCQM
- Laia Domingo, CSO Ingenii Inc.
What’s Next?
This achievement has set a strong foundation for future initiatives, motivating us to facilitate more quantum competitions that address even greater challenges and explore groundbreaking ideas, delivering meaningful outcomes for companies and industries alike.
This is just the start of our journey. We look forward to hosting future competitions and collaborating with organizations to design challenges that uncover how quantum computing can address their unique business needs. Stay tuned for more events, partnerships, and opportunities to drive innovation together.