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Author: David Prior

Almost One Third of Life Science Companies Set to Begin Quantum Computing Evaluation This Year

Posted on by David Prior

 

Boston, 14 July, 2020: New survey results from the Pistoia Alliance, the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) and QuPharm show almost one third (31 percent) of life science organisations polled are set to begin quantum computing evaluation this year. A further 39 percent are planning to evaluate next year or have quantum computing ‘on their radar’, while 30 percent have no current plans to evaluate.

 

The three organisations have collaborated to establish a cross-industry Community of Interest (CoI) to explore the opportunities for quantum computing to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of biopharma R&D.  The CoI aims to support companies that need help navigating the pathway to quantum computing and will facilitate collaboration between stakeholders, propose new ideas for quantum computing projects, and help interested parties define and articulate potential use cases.

 

“The interest in quantum computing across many sectors is high, yet most biopharmaceutical companies are only just beginning the journey and exploring the potential for accelerating discovery,” commented Emir Roach, one of the leaders of QuPharm. “Quantum computing is a completely new paradigm of computing, and our mission is to accelerate its implementation in life sciences. We are looking forward to working with the Pistoia Alliance and QED-C to help educate the life science and healthcare industry on the benefits.”

 

The survey showed that more than four out of five respondents (82 percent) believe quantum computing will impact the industry within the next decade. The same proportion of respondents believe discovery and development will be first to benefit from quantum computing deployments in the biopharmaceutical industry.

 

Quantum computing is likely to have a profound impact on precision medicine, enabling accelerated genomics and proteomics correlation, as well as the calculation of multiple probabilities and outcomes. It will also help organisations deliver new molecules and therapies to market faster by streamlining the discovery process and enabling quantum energy calculations for molecules, as predicted in the Pistoia Alliance’s 2030 vision report. In the future such technology could help the industry more quickly and accurately model disease pathways caused by novel coronaviruses.

 

The CoI has come together to help organisations address the key issues that need to be solved if the extraordinary benefits of quantum computing are to be realized. Potential barriers identified in the survey include a shortage of skills and a lack of access to quantum computing infrastructure (both cited by 28 percent of respondents) and the need for clearly defined use cases (31 percent).

 

“There are myriad opportunities for quantum computing in life sciences and healthcare, and through this community of interest the pharmaceutical and quantum computing sectors can work together to identify and communicate areas of early and high potential,” commented Celia Merzbacher, Deputy Director at QED-C. “While quantum computing is still emerging, now is the time to jointly define use cases and challenges in pharmaceutical discovery and development that quantum computing can address. Better understanding of the pharmaceutical bottlenecks can accelerate quantum computing hardware and software development for overcoming those.”

 

“Given the interest in quantum computing amongst our members, we wanted to create the community of interest to address their needs and questions. We are now looking for more companies to get involved and commit resources to help us explore use cases,” commented John Wise, a member of the Pistoia Alliance Operations Team supporting the new quantum computing CoI. “The shared-risk, shared-reward advantages of pre-competitive collaboration are an ideal way for companies to explore the opportunities and challenges of quantum computing.  Those organisations that do not begin to evaluate quantum computing now are at risk of being left behind once its value is realised. Those that are equipped to adopt the technology when it matures will be significantly ahead.”

 

The research survey was conducted at the Community of Interest’s inaugural webinar in June 2020. More than 240 attendees from life science and quantum computing organisations across the US and Europe participated. To find out more about the CoI and help to steer future projects on quantum computing please contact John Wise at the Pistoia Alliance via john.wise@pistoiaalliance.org or Celia Merzbacher via celia.merzbacher@sri.com.

—ENDS—

 

About The Pistoia Alliance:

The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members’ organization made up of life science companies, technology and service providers, publishers, and academic groups working to lower barriers to innovation in life science and healthcare R&D. It was conceived in 2007 and incorporated in 2009 by representatives of AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer who met at a conference in Pistoia, Italy. Its projects transform R&D through pre-competitive collaboration. It overcomes common R&D obstacles by identifying the root causes, developing standards and best practices, sharing pre-competitive data and knowledge, and implementing technology pilots. There are currently over 150 member companies; members collaborate on projects that generate significant value for the worldwide life sciences R&D community, using The Pistoia Alliance’s proven framework for open innovation. For further information visit www.pistoiaalliance.org

 

About Quantum Economic Development Consortium:

QED-C is an industry-driven consortium managed by SRI International and established in response to the 2018 National Quantum Initiative Act. Membership includes more than 120 U.S. companies from across the supply chain and more than 40 academic institutions and other stakeholders. The consortium seeks to enable and grow the quantum industry and associated supply chain. For more about QED-C, go to https://quantumconsortium.org/.

Media Contacts:

Spark Communications

+44 207 436 0420

pistoiaalliance@sparkcomms.co.uk

 

Tanya Randall

The Pistoia Alliance

+44 7887 811332

tanya.randall@pistoiaalliance.org

 

Reenita Malhotra Hora

SRI International

+1 415 531 8280

reenita.hora@sri.com

Pistoia Alliance and Mission: Cure win Bio-IT World 2020 Innovative Practices Award

Posted on by David Prior

Bio-IT World has announced the winners of the 2020 Innovative Practices Awards. Entries from the Pistoia Alliance and Mission: Cure, Roche, Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, University of Chicago, and Massachusetts General Hospital were all honored.

 

The Pistoia Alliance and Mission: Cure’s winning entry recognizes the success of a rare disease drug-repurposing datathon to treat chronic pancreatitis which was organized by the Pistoia Alliance and Elsevier and conducted in partnership with Cures Within Reach and Mission: Cure.

 

Since 2003, Bio-IT World has hosted an elite awards program, highlighting outstanding examples of how technology innovations and strategic initiatives can be powerful forces for change in the life sciences, from basic biomedical research to drug development and beyond.

 

“The Innovative Practices Awards consistently recognize efforts in our community to push our technological boundaries further to advance life sciences research. Sharing these collaborations offers opportunities for the whole community to emulate best practices and leapfrog current hurdles for future growth,” said Allison Proffitt, Editorial Director of Bio-IT World. “Although the 2020 Bio-IT World Conference & Expo has been moved to October, we couldn’t wait to share these well-deserving projects with our community.”

 

This year’s five winners were selected by a panel of expert judges including the Bio-IT World editors and Cambridge Healthtech Institute executives from entries received from pharmaceutical companies, academic centers, government agencies, and technology providers.

 

“We are honored to receive such a prestigious award for innovation. Our drug repurposing datathon with Elsevier, Cures Within Reach and Mission: Cure produced some very promising results and shows that when we unite and share our expertise and resources we can achieve breakthroughs that will have a real impact on patients’ lives,” said Dr. Steve Arlington, President, The Pistoia Alliance.

 

The Pistoia Alliance and Mission: Cure entry nominated by Elsevier:

 

Elsevier and Pistoia Alliance organized a drug-repurposing datathon, with Cures Within Reach and Mission: Cure being the consulting organizations. The objective was to identify repurposable drug candidates for chronic pancreatitis—a rare disease that affects about 1 million people globally, and currently doesn’t have an approved treatment. Datathon participants used Entellect, an Elsevier data integration platform, to access Elsevier supplied datasets such as Reaxys Medicinal Chemistry, ResNet (aka PathwayStudio) and PharmaPendium. In addition, participants were able to incorporate third party datasets into Entellect to create a single, harmonized and linked dataset, against which they applied machine learning and statistical techniques, from exploratory data analysis and data pre-processing, to feature engineering, model building, validation and comparison, and finally result visualization and model deployment. As a result, 4 drug candidates were identified in 30-60 days, then reviewed and approved by the expert panel, pending further clinical trials by Mission: Cure.

 

Details of all the winning entries can be found at www.bio-itworld.com

CAS and Pistoia Alliance partnering for Chemical Safety Library

Posted on by David Prior

CAS Makes Commitment to Enhance Laboratory Safety by Partnering with the Pistoia Alliance for Chemical Safety Library

 

New agreement will leverage CAS information management capabilities to grow critical safety resource pioneered by the Pistoia Alliance for the chemical community

 

Columbus, OH, and Boston, MA June 23, 2020 – CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society specializing in scientific information solutions, and the Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit members’ organization that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, announced today the signing of an agreement under which CAS will develop and host the Pistoia Alliance Chemical Safety Library.

 

The Chemical Safety Library is a community crowd-sourced database of hazardous reaction incidents launched by the Pistoia Alliance as a prototype in 2017. Based on an initiative submitted by Bristol Myers Squibb and funded by Pistoia Alliance members, including Bayer Pharma AG, Bristol Myers Squibb, Glaxo Group LTD, Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., Merck KGaA, Pfizer Inc. and F. Hoffmann-La Roche, the database currently has over 1,000 registered users from industry, academia, and government entities.

 

“F. Hoffmann-La Roche has been a long-time supporter of pre-competitive collaboration in Pharma R&D. Cross-industry data sharing to promote laboratory safety is an excellent application,” notes Dr. Thomas Woltering, Section Head Medicinal Chemistry at the Roche Innovation Center in Basel. “We are pleased to see what started with just a handful of Pistoia Alliance member companies helping each other is expanding across the wider chemical community. The expertise CAS brings to the partnership will greatly enhance the service itself as well as expand the reach of this important effort.”

 

The Chemical Safety Library provides a repository for scientists to capture and confidentially share hazardous reaction information based on their experiences in the laboratory, with the goal of improving safety and reducing incidents across the chemical enterprise. “The safety of employees and researchers is a top priority at Bristol Myers Squibb,” said Alastair Binnie, Vice President, IT for R&D at Bristol Myers Squibb.  “Based on an initial project designed to eliminate repeat incidents and increase safety at Bristol Myers Squibb, Chemical Safety Library has grown to become an important safety resource for the entire global research community thanks to the stewardship of the Pistoia Alliance and its members.  We look forward to seeing this important industry database continue to grow and thrive under the management of CAS.”

 

CAS and Pistoia Alliance are tackling this effort because they believe that openly sharing critical safety data can make the entire chemical community safer.

 

“Information sharing has no greater purpose than ensuring the safety of the researchers doing the critical work of innovation,” said CAS President Manuel Guzman. “We look forward to partnering with Pistoia Alliance and the wider chemical community to grow and enhance the Chemical Safety Library, ensuring every organization can confidently and efficiently contribute to and use this critical resource.” Under this agreement, the Chemical Safety Library will continue to be a free resource for the entire chemical community, enhanced with a new deposition and search interface developed by CAS.

 

The Pistoia Alliance engaged with CAS to manage the Chemical Safety Library because of CAS’s unique scientific information management expertise and technology capabilities. With over a century of experience building and managing high-quality scientific databases, including the largest available curated collection of published chemical reactions, CAS is a respected authority in the chemistry space, providing confidence that this critical data can be shared confidentiality and deposited and accessed efficiently.

 

“I cannot think of a better organization to entrust with the Pistoia Alliance’s Chemical Safety Library than CAS, and I am pleased they have agreed to support this important effort,” said Dr. Steve Arlington, President of the Pistoia Alliance. “The Chemical Safety Library is one of the most important initiatives the Pistoia Alliance has launched, and it has always attracted considerable interest from our members. We believe that every area of research can benefit from collaboration, and CAS has deep expertise in managing this type of data resource. I look forward to seeing the growth and further development of the Chemical Safety Library through this partnership.”

 

The hazard information that is being collected for the Chemical Safety Library is freely available to the public, and is also uploaded to PubChem, an open chemistry database sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, for additional accessibility. Anyone can contribute reaction incident information to the database, which will be overseen by an advisory panel made up of CAS, ACS, Pistoia Alliance management and member companies, as well as outside experts. Professor Richard Hartshorn, Secretary General of The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), noted “IUPAC  is fully supportive of this effort, and plans to encourage its national, company and individual members to contribute and use this safety resource once available.”

 

About CAS

CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society specializing in scientific information solutions, partners with R&D organizations globally to provide actionable insights that help them plan, innovate, protect their innovations, and predict how new markets and opportunities will evolve. Scientists, patent professionals and business leaders rely on CAS solutions and services to advise discovery and strategy. With more than 110 years’ experience, no one knows more about scientific information than CAS. Visit www.cas.org.

 

About The Pistoia Alliance

The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members’ organization made up of life science companies, technology and service providers, publishers, and academic groups working to lower barriers to innovation in life science and healthcare R&D. It was conceived in 2007 and incorporated in 2009 by representatives of AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer who met at a conference in Pistoia, Italy. Its projects transform R&D through pre-competitive collaboration. It overcomes common R&D obstacles by identifying the root causes, developing standards and best practices, sharing pre-competitive data and knowledge, and implementing technology pilots. There are currently over 150 member companies; members collaborate on projects that generate significant value for the worldwide life sciences R&D community, using The Pistoia Alliance’s proven framework for open innovation. Visit www.pistoiaalliance.org

 

The Pistoia Alliance Launches New Digital Health Project

Posted on by David Prior

The Pistoia Alliance Launches New Project to Help Life Sciences and Healthcare Realize the Value of Digital Health

The first project of the new digital initiative, backed by $40,000 seed funding from the Alliance, will analyze data from apps used in a clinical trial to improve the consistency of data capture

 

Boston, 9th June 2020:  The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit alliance that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, today launched a new series of programs to help organizations collaborate on advancing the role of digital technology within life sciences R&D and healthcare. As part of The Pistoia Alliance’s strategic refresh, defined by its 2030 vision report, the Alliance has created this initiative to bring together all stakeholders with an interest in digital health technologies; the goal is to develop projects that deliver real, tangible outcomes.

 

The first project in this stream is being undertaken in collaboration with The Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), and will explore the quality generation and ethical use of digital health data in clinical studies. The project will analyze how a digital, real-world data collection tool is used during a clinical trial, aiming to define standards for collecting patient-centric data in a way that provides value for a particular therapeutic area.

 

“Using digital technologies in life sciences needs a pragmatic approach. The potential is huge, but many organizations are only talking about or piloting digital projects, rarely delivering tangible sustainable outcomes and with many organizations’ projects simply duplicating efforts of their peers,” said Professor Ashley George, Co-Founder of The Pistoia Alliance. “Our projects are developed in response to our members’ challenges, and realizing true patient-centric value from ‘digital’ is a universal problem across all aspects of life sciences. For this first initiative, we turned our attention towards clinical trials because this is a resource-intensive area of R&D and to date, data stewardship during trials – and indeed, across the life sciences industry in general – has been poor. Digital so far has promised a lot but sustainably delivered relatively little. If we want to see the real digital transformation with real benefits for patients, companies need to work together and invest more to ensure the patient experience is interoperable and seamless – both for apps and digitally-enabled physical devices.”

 

Digital technology has become increasingly prevalent in clinical trials, thanks to patient wearables, in-house monitoring, mobile apps for collecting data, plus cloud and automation technologies. This not only enables more innovative trials but improves the patient experience since they can be conducted virtually – crucial also in light of social distancing measures and travel restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these technologies collect large volumes of data, and since there is a lack of agreed metrics and standards for managing them, the ability to draw inferences and firm conclusions – or even to allow patients to share their own data – is limited.

 

Indeed, in a recent survey conducted by the Alliance, almost half (46 percent) of respondents said a lack of industry-wide data standards is the biggest barrier to collecting and leveraging patient data. This project will address these problem areas by producing real-world outcomes, providing beacon projects showing consistency in how digital medicine tools are used in clinical trials, and how the data they collect is captured, recorded, and shared.

 

“It’s crucial that the life sciences industry comes together to collectively advance the use of digital technologies to speed up the development of new medical products,” said Jennifer Goldsack, Executive Director at DiMe. “The Pistoia Alliance’s dedication to encouraging knowledge sharing and the establishment of industry best practices is why we are pleased to partner on this project. By collaborating with key members of the industry, we aim to begin to address the lack of standards for digital technologies and how we capture patient data.”

 

“In our consumerized world, building digital tools isn’t difficult, but generating quality outcomes from them is,” concluded Professor Ashley George. “That’s why by launching this initiative, we aim to bring together everyone in the life science community, from big pharma companies to technology vendors, software and hardware developers, academics, and start-ups who are all Pistoia Alliance members. We’re also keen to support the investor community, which is often looking for worthy digital projects in which to invest. Ultimately, having the humility to collaborate is essential for projects like this to benefit patients, and thus the whole industry and value chain, which is why we’re now calling on organizations to come forward and get involved to co-create.”

 

Data stewardship is hugely important to The Pistoia Alliance and is fundamental in accelerating R&D, with the Alliance pioneering a range of projects championing the importance of sharing and standardizing data – including its recently launched FAIR Toolkit and Unified Data Model. To find out more about the new project and the existing portfolio the Alliance supports, please visit:  https://www.pistoiaalliance.org/

 

—ENDS—

 

About The Pistoia Alliance:

The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members’ organization made up of life science companies, technology and service providers, publishers, and academic groups working to lower barriers to innovation in life science and healthcare R&D. It was conceived in 2007 and incorporated in 2009 by representatives of AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer who met at a conference in Pistoia, Italy. Its projects transform R&D through pre-competitive collaboration. It overcomes common R&D obstacles by identifying the root causes, developing standards and best practices, sharing pre-competitive data and knowledge, and implementing technology pilots. There are currently over 150 member companies; members collaborate on projects that generate significant value for the worldwide life sciences R&D community, using The Pistoia Alliance’s proven framework for open innovation.

 

About the Digital Medicine Society:
The Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) is the professional organization for experts from all disciplines comprising the diverse field of digital medicine. Together, we drive scientific progress and broad acceptance of digital medicine to enhance public health. From regulators to white-hat hackers, ethicists to engineers, and clinicians to citizen scientists, we are a community at the intersection of the global healthcare and technology communities dedicated to advancing digital medicine to optimize human health. @_DiMeSociety

 

 

Media Contacts:

Spark Communications

+44 207 436 0420

pistoiaalliance@sparkcomms.co.uk

 

Tanya Randall

The Pistoia Alliance

+44 7887 811332

tanya.randall@pistoiaalliance.org

FAIR Toolkit Launch

Posted on by David Prior

Boston, May 14 2020, The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit alliance that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, today launched a freely accessible toolkit to help companies implement the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) guiding principles for data management and stewardship.

 

The project is funded by large pharmaceutical companies and SMEs alike, including AstraZeneca, Bayer, Roche, Novartis, Bristol Myers Squibb, AbbVie, and Copyright Clearance Center. Collated by experts in the field, the toolkit contains numerous method tools, training, and change management, as well as use cases, allowing organizations to learn from industry successes. As the life sciences industry continues to digitize, the FAIR guiding principles of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable data will help organizations realize their digital transformation, make preparations for the Lab of the Future (LoTF), and accelerate the application of AI and deep learning.

 

“At Roche, we know that implementing the FAIR principles can be difficult for biotech and pharma organizations of every size, so we are very pleased to lead on this project and help make the process easier,” commented Dr. Martin Romacker, Principal Scientist at Roche. “The toolkit will help to smooth the path to greater data sharing within and between industries, which is critical to future research efforts. We see the FAIR guiding principles as a worthy goal, and one which will help the industry realize the value of technologies like deep learning.”

 

Although organizations have become increasingly aware of data as an asset, data are often siloed, stored in varying formats, and difficult to retrieve or share. Adopting the FAIR principles helps companies break down internal siloes and cope with the growing volume and complexity of data generated. The FAIR guiding principles were published in 2016 (Wilkinson, et al.) as a blueprint for well-managed and machine-actionable data to allow computational systems to find, access, interoperate, and reuse data with minimal human intervention. However, further research (Wise et al. 2019) found that many companies are still struggling with the implementation of the principles.

 

“We are delighted to be working with our peers to facilitate this culture change and forge the path for industry-wide FAIR implementation,” commented Dr. Alexandra Grebe de Barron, IT Business Partner at Bayer. “The launch of the toolkit is coming at a time when life science companies are assessing how they store and manage data to meet new requirements and successfully embark on digital transformation projects. By collaborating with colleagues and partners, we can better realize the value of AI and advanced analytics.”

 

“Since we launched the project, we have had tremendous interest from global pharma as well SMEs, demonstrating just how important a resource like this is for the entire life science industry,” commented Ian Harrow, PhD, Consultant at The Pistoia Alliance. “The FAIR toolkit will enable organizations to realize the value of their data, accomplish effective data management, and build a more collaborative research environment. Data is the connecting thread between all of our projects at The Pistoia Alliance, underpinning initiatives like the Universal Data Model, as well as the effective implementation of AI. We’ll continue to work with our members on developing projects that deliver such tangible benefits to their organizations.”

 

The FAIR toolkit is available now – you can download it here (http://fairtoolkit.pistoiaalliance.org). The Pistoia Alliance has worked with its industry partners to ensure that the toolkit remains compatible with other FAIR data standardization projects, like the IMI FAIRplus project. For assistance adopting FAIR in your organization, or to get involved in the FAIR project, please contact us ProjectInquiry@pistoiaalliance.org.

 

–ENDS–

 

About The Pistoia Alliance:

The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members’ organization made up of life science companies, technology and service providers, publishers, and academic groups working to lower barriers to innovation in life science and healthcare R&D. It was conceived in 2007 and incorporated in 2009 by representatives of AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer who met at a conference in Pistoia, Italy. Its projects transform R&D through pre-competitive collaboration. It overcomes common R&D obstacles by identifying the root causes, developing standards and best practices, sharing pre-competitive data and knowledge, and implementing technology pilots. There are currently over 150 member companies; members collaborate on projects that generate significant value for the worldwide life sciences R&D community, using The Pistoia Alliance’s proven framework for open innovation.

 

Media Contacts:

Spark Communications

+44 207 436 0420

pistoiaalliance@sparkcomms.co.uk

 

Tanya Randall

The Pistoia Alliance

+44 7887 811332

tanya.randall@pistoiaalliance.org

 

 

 

Unified Data Model (UDM) Project Reaches Major Milestone

Posted on by David Prior

Boston, 25 February, 2020 The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit alliance that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, today released the latest Unified Data Model (UDM) file format, Version 6, supported by funding from Biovia, Elsevier, GSK, Novartis, and Roche (recently joined by BMS). V6 delivers a stable foundation for the collection and exchange of reaction data and empowers the community to move forward with its adoption.  The release is built upon standard (Allotrope-compatible) vocabularies for units of measure and analytical methods, allowing the systems to be interoperable. As increased adoption of AI and ML in R&D continues, such industry-wide data standards are essential in the move towards the digitally-driven Lab of the Future (LoTF).

 

“The UDM is exactly the type of essential project the Pistoia Alliance was formed to work on – it enables internal and external collaboration, and ultimately helps to accelerate innovation and discovery,” commented Dr. Steve Arlington, President of The Pistoia Alliance. “Following this latest update, the project is now shifting into a support phase to help companies adopt the UDM model. Most recently we have secured additional funding from BMS to allow us to continue the project to benefit users, and we are pleased to welcome Cynthia Beno from BMS to our steering committee. We are also currently looking for additional funding in order to develop a toolkit that would bring together methods, techniques and literature to support the adoption of the UDM. If any companies would like to be involved, we encourage you to get in touch.”

 

The latest update of the UDM looks to primarily improve the semantics and validation of data. This is important in R&D when acronyms and words can be interchanged. Without alignment on terms and data models, great opportunities to see trends or wider patterns are missed. Standardized harmonization of data is especially important as we are seeing increased adoption of AI, and machine and deep learning, which are reliant on high-quality data to improve outcomes and predictions. To continue to improve alignment in the future, the Alliance is looking to work more closely with the Allotrope Foundation, to ensure the two systems are complementary and compatible. To help with the adoption of the UDM, Jarek Tomczak will also be presenting on V6 at the upcoming AI for Reaction Outcome and Synthetic Route Prediction conference.

 

“At Roche, we are very excited to continue to be involved in the UDM project and we recognize its value to the research community” commented Brian Jones, Principal Scientist, Discovery Informatics at Roche and UDM Project Champion. “It is great to have progressed the UDM to this stage, and to now move to supporting and promoting the adoption of the model.”

 

“It’s fantastic to see the UDM continue to develop under the project team’s stewardship, and to serve the R&D ecosystem. Elsevier donated the original UDM to the Pistoia Alliance and we hope it continues to succeed and promote collaboration in the future,” commented Tim Hoctor, Vice President, Professional Services at Elsevier and board member of The Pistoia Alliance.

 

Following the success of the UDM project, The Pistoia Alliance is currently developing a new project, SEED, which is complimentary, and will provide guidance on the specifics of connecting a semantically enriched ELN to the FAIR principles, as well as open standards built to enable semantic tools to seamlessly connect to all ELNs. Looking to the future, the UDM project team will continue to support the UDM and look to develop the adoption toolkit. To join the UDM team, help develop the project even further, or for help adopting the UDM in your organization, please get in touch with Gabrielle Whittick (gabrielle.whittick@pistoiaalliance.org) or Jarek Tomczak (jarek.tomczak@pistoiaalliance.org).

 

–ENDS–

 

About The Pistoia Alliance:

The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members’ organization made up of life science companies, technology and service providers, publishers, and academic groups working to lower barriers to innovation in life science and healthcare R&D. It was conceived in 2007 and incorporated in 2009 by representatives of AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer who met at a conference in Pistoia, Italy. Its projects transform R&D through pre-competitive collaboration. It overcomes common R&D obstacles by identifying the root causes, developing standards and best practices, sharing pre-competitive data and knowledge, and implementing technology pilots. There are currently over 150 member companies; members collaborate on projects that generate significant value for the worldwide life sciences R&D community, using The Pistoia Alliance’s proven framework for open innovation.

 

 

Media Contacts:

Spark Communications

+44 207 436 0420

pistoiaalliance@sparkcomms.co.uk

 

 

Tanya Randall

The Pistoia Alliance

+44 7887 811332

tanya.randall@pistoiaalliance.org

 

Pistoia Alliance Strengthens Its Team

Posted on by David Prior

Kathy Gibson joins as Innovation Advisor 

Accomplished healthcare industry executive Kathy Gibson has joined our team as Innovation Advisor and will be involved in delivering more ideas into our portfolio process. She has over 25 years of experience spanning the pharmaceutical and digital information services industries. Most recently, Kathy served as Chief Innovation Officer for CAS having previously spent 13 years at Pfizer tackling some of the toughest industry challenges in the areas of R&D productivity, business efficiency, change management and innovation. In addition to her work in innovation, Kathy is devoted to coaching and mentoring women.

 

 

 

 

Dr Paul Denny-Gouldson to help drive digital life sciences/health collaboration

A former Pistoia Alliance board member, Dr Paul Denny-Gouldson, has joined us as a consultant to help drive forwards our endeavors in ‘digital’. With digital medicine/health/life sciences set to impact healthcare and play a growing role in transforming lives, Paul is helping to identify new and existing members who want to collaborate and innovative at the interface of science, technology and patient health. Paul has a track record in drug discovery and development having held a number of senior positions at global software provider IDBS. He is a chemist by training and has a PhD in Molecular Biophysics and GPCRs.

 

 

 

 

Tanya Randall to lead communications

Tanya Randall has joined us as Communications Lead and is our central point of contact for our communications strategy and campaign development. She has over 25 years’ experience in communications and marketing gained working with organisations in technology and life sciences. She started her career in high-tech PR and has been a Director and Founder at several leading global agencies. She has a BSc in Biological Sciences.

SEED Project Gets Started

Posted on by David Prior

The Semantic Enrichment of ELN Data (SEED) Project is pleased to announce its official “start-up” in January 2020.

 

Following the recent presentation at the Pistoia Alliance conference in Boston by Steve Penn ( Pfizer), there is a high level of interest in the project and this has been confirmed by offers of funding that enable the project to get started.

 

Some of the problems that this project aims to solve are:

  • Volumes of unstructured eLN content are exponentially growing with the potential to extract knowledge
  • Most eLN content is free text, unstructured information and thus challenging to identify common concepts (Named Entity Recognition NER), to effectively search and for extraction of deeper Insights
  • Retrospective data analysis and searching of generally unstructured content is a huge challenge
  • Data Workflows to/from eLNs can be relatively restricted in approach.
  • Connectivity to Study Registration systems to enable Scientists to reuse such metadata through API to eLN are a must
  • Availability of persistent identifiers challenges the capability of making data to be digitally discoverable and hinders aggregation of data inter-applications

 

In January, a Project Team will be formed and the first activity will be to agree on a Project Charter, outlining the scope, timing, and deliverables of the project. It is likely that we will hold a face-to-face workshop in the Spring where the project team can focus their time on the deliverables.

 

Outputs of the proposed project will be 2 fold; guidance on specifics of connecting a semantic enriched eLN to the FAIR principles as well as open standards built to enable Semantic tools to seamlessly connect to all eLNs”

 

Contact us if you would like to join the SEED project or if you have questions by emailing: ProjectInquiry@pistoiaalliance.org

Unified Data Model V6 to be released in January

Posted on by David Prior

The goal of the Unified Data Model (UDM) project is to create and publish an open, extendable, and freely available data format for the exchange of experimental information about compound synthesis and their testing.

 

The UDM project is pleased to announce the release of Version  6.0 in January 2020. This will be the final version for at least a year, which will give stability and allow us to concentrate on the adoption and promotion of UDM.  Some of the key features in Version 6 are:

 

  • Stabilization of the format for reaction data (not breaking changes envision after version 6.0 / 2020)
  • Improved support for analytical data (embedded or linked data sets)
  • Detailed information on data provenance
  • A new optional entity to represent sample information
  • Allow citation and molecule details inside reaction variations
  • Fixing data types for several entities and improved semantics
  • Using a standard (Allotrope-compatible) vocabulary for units of measure
  • Allow for environmental, health and safety
  • New sample data sets in the UDM format

 

The UDM project team is also working on the future direction of UDM and challenging if the time is right to develop a shared vision with other key players, for example, Allotrope. Individual discussions have begun and the intention is to invite key stakeholders to a face-to-face meeting in the Spring, where a strategy will be formed.

 

The project team will continue in a support mode during the first 6 months of 2020 after which time we will review what is required by the UDM community.

 

If you have any questions, please contact us at ProjectInquiry@pistoiaalliance.org.

Pistoia Alliance Report 2030

Posted on by David Prior

 

 

New report with input from industry experts looks ahead to 2030 to help industry prepare for the impact of digital technology

 

London, 11th December 2019 – The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit organisation that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, today announced the publication of a new report into the future of the life science and healthcare industries: ‘2030: Life sciences and Health in the Digital Age’. The report, drawing on material generated by 75 industry experts from 65 major organisations, has been written as a retrospective from 2030, looking back on a decade of significant technological, social and political evolution. It predicts new innovations and regulatory reforms that organisations need to be prepared for in the coming decade and examines individual technologies that will impact the sector. The report will help life sciences, biopharma R&D and healthcare organisations identify the trends they will need to respond to and the areas in which collaboration will be crucial.

 

The technologies covered in the report include:

  • AI/ML
  • Blockchain
  • Cloud Computing
  • Quantum computing
  • Medical Devices
  • Digital – including biomarkers, diagnostics, monitoring and therapeutics
  • Internet of Things
  • Laboratory Automation
  • Tissue and Organ regeneration
  • Liquid next generation sequencing
  • Therapeutic molecule synthesis

 

“This report has been created for members and friends of the Pistoia Alliance, as well as others with an interest in what the life science, biopharma R&D and healthcare ecosystem might look like in 2030,” commented Dr Steve Arlington, President of The Pistoia Alliance. “For the past decade, the Alliance has worked with organisations across the industry to improve collaboration and increase innovation, so we are ideally placed to gather expert insight from all angles and look ahead to what the future holds. There is no doubt that the next decade will herald unprecedented change, and our objective is to ensure that the Pistoia Alliance, its members, and the industry as a whole, are prepared and agile enough to respond and thrive.”

 

Aside from the technological advances forecast, the report also outlines patient-centric innovations likely to occur between now and 2030. These include developments in precision medicine, genomics, stem-cell and gene-based therapies, patient registries, diagnostic pills, and an increased use of Real World Data (RWD). In addition, the authors foresee that breakthroughs resulting from studies of the human microbiome will match, or even surpass, those achieved by genomics in recent decades. However, these healthcare developments come at a cost. Society will need to think of new ways of valuing, calculating and funding the costs of healthcare delivery. The key stakeholders must evolve to become an integrated community which embraces all aspects of healthcare (patients, disease prevention and diagnosis, treatment and monitoring), to collaborate, educate, and inform.

“Our agenda must shift from treatment of disease to prevention and cure, and with that, the reward systems we have to promote these solutions must flex to encompass the new agenda,” said John Wise, report co-author and member of the Pistoia Alliance operations team. “To realise these goals, the industry must embrace the technical and scientific advances we are seeing in the life sciences. The new wave of digital technologies supporting diagnostics, therapeutics and health devices, coupled with the progress of AI and Machine Learning, will deliver exciting progress. Further, the analysis of data generated by this digital revolution will make a profound contribution to the understanding of disease, the delivery of new therapies and the palliation of the human condition.”

 

The report was written by Dr Steve Arlington and John Wise, following three ‘futurecasting’ workshops held throughout 2019 in San Francisco, Boston and London. 75 delegates attended, and participants included regulators in Europe and US, healthcare professionals, drug discovery experts, technology leaders, and specialist VCs. To find out more, to get involved in the work of the Pistoia Alliance, and to receive a copy of the full report please visit https://www.pistoiaalliance.org/pistoia-alliance-report-digital-age/.

–ENDS–

 

 

About The Pistoia Alliance:

The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members’ organization made up of life science companies, technology and service providers, publishers, and academic groups working to lower barriers to innovation in life science and healthcare R&D. It was conceived in 2007 and incorporated in 2009 by representatives of AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer who met at a conference in Pistoia, Italy. Its projects transform R&D through pre-competitive collaboration. It overcomes common R&D obstacles by identifying the root causes, developing standards and best practices, sharing pre-competitive data and knowledge, and implementing technology pilots. There are currently over 150 member companies; members collaborate on projects that generate significant value for the worldwide life sciences R&D community, using The Pistoia Alliance’s proven framework for open innovation.

 

Media Contacts:

Spark Communications

+44 207 436 0420

pistoiaalliance@sparkcomms.co.uk

Pistoia Alliance Report 2030

Posted on by David Prior

This report is intended for all members and friends of the Pistoia Alliance, and any others interested in its work supporting cross-industry collaboration and innovation.
It sets out to consider what the life science, biopharma R&D, and healthcare ecosystem might look like in 2030.

 

The objective is to ensure that the Pistoia Alliance, its members, and the industry as a whole, are prepared and agile enough to respond to the changes that will occur over the next ten years or so in the life science/biopharma/healthcare ecosystem.

 

The sophistication of technology is increasing exponentially; enhancements are enabling the development of scientific method and consequently scientific insight. This combination of advances in technology, medical science and healthcare is empowering society to progress from a “one-size-fits-all” management and palliation of disease, to a personalized, preventive and predictive approach – even to the cure of previously incurable disease.

 

However, these healthcare developments come at a cost. Society will need to think of new ways of valuing, calculating and funding the costs of healthcare delivery. The key stakeholders must evolve to become an integrated community embracing all aspects of healthcare (patients, disease prevention and diagnosis, treatment and monitoring) that collaborates, educates, and informs.

 

To support this evolution, we have produced this “futurescape” set around the year 2030.
It looks back at the changes experienced by the world and its demand for healthcare and is written from this retrospective point of view. There are many scenarios we could legitimately put forward and challenge, choosing just one was a lengthy process involving many industry experts. It is not to say it will be correct. However, in presenting these scenarios it is hoped that they might stimulate debate and help identify signals that identify the likely drivers of change over the next decade.

 

“In times of political and social upheaval, maintaining our links across borders and working closely together is more important than ever. We must focus on science, not geography”

 

Download the report

US Conference Report 2019

Posted on by David Prior

Winners of the 2019 President’s Startup Challenge Announced, as The Pistoia Alliance Looks to the Future

 

 

Boston, 30 October, 2019 – The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit alliance that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, has announced the winners of the 2019 President’s Startup Challenge at its annual member conference in Boston. The grand prize winner is Valtari Bio and the audience vote winner is named as Statice; the two were selected from five finalists and shortlisted from more than 30 entries received from around the world. The annual US conference saw more than 200 delegates from 150 Pistoia Alliance members gather to hear industry leaders speak on a range of topics. This included a keynote address from Dr Steve Arlington, President of The Pistoia Alliance, in which he talked about the Alliance’s plans to help members navigate the next decade of change.

 

“All our finalists are an excellent demonstration of how the life sciences industry continues to innovate. I congratulate Valtari Bio and Statice, and look forward to seeing how all five startups impact our industry for the better,” commented Dr Arlington. “At this year’s conference, we look back on 10 successful years of bringing life science stakeholders together and look forward to the decade ahead. All of us in the life science community have the potential to significantly improve global health, but we must work together to make this a reality. Technology continues to drive transformation, and the global economic and political backdrop remain in flux – collaboration is crucial to overcoming the challenges we may face while realising our goal.”

 

Conference keynotes were delivered by speakers from members of The Pistoia Alliance, from a range of organisations, including charities and not-for-profit organisations. These included: Lisa Shipley, VP Digital & Analytics Technology, Merck; Philip Tagari, VP Research, Amgen; Richard Wyse, Director of R&D, The Cure Parkinson’s Trust; Alice Pomponio, Founder and MD, Accendo; Caroline Cake, COO, HDR UK; Robert Coughlin, CEO, Massachusetts Biotech Council. 

 

Dr Arlington continued, “Our annual conference gives members the opportunity to not only meet with their peers, but also hear from the highest quality of speakers on topics that directly affect the life sciences industry – from the Lab of the Future, to policy and regulation. The immediate feedback we received from attendees is that the presentations were hugely beneficial to them. The choice of workshops also offered members the chance to hear from experts on everything from digital medicine to quantum computing.” 

 

The President’s Challenge is an annual award that rewards informatics and technology focused startups aiming to impact the way life science R&D is performed, bringing their solutions to the attention of the wider life sciences and healthcare industry. The grand prize winner, Valtari Bio, was selected by a panel of seven industry judges, and the audience vote winner, Statice, was chosen by The Pistoia Alliance’s members, following a live ‘shark tank’ pitch. All five finalists attended a support and coaching day with Pistoia Alliance members; the two winners each receive $15,000, and six months mentorship from a leading industry expert. All finalists receive $5,000, and one year’s membership to The Pistoia Alliance. More detail on the five finalists follows:

 

  • Valtari Bio (Morgantown, West Virginia): Developing a blood test to aid in the rapid triage of suspected stroke patients; its ReST™ (Rapid evaluation Stroke Triage) test will help clinicians with or without stroke expertise make a confident initial stroke versus no stroke decision.
  • Statice (Berlin, Germany): Offers a data anonymization solution to enable businesses to stay innovative with smart synthetic data; empowers companies to work with complex data in a privacy-compliant manner, and support data-driven innovation. 
  • Arctoris (Oxford, UK): Provides fully automated experiments-as-a-service to researchers worldwide; allowing researchers and biotech entrepreneurs to design and remotely execute advanced cellular and molecular biology research experiments.
  • LabVoice (North Carolina, USA): The first voice assistant designed specifically for everyday laboratory needs; gives users a common human-lab interaction, leaving them hands free to focus on the science, rather than taking manual notes or using instrumentation. 
  • Molecule.one (Warsaw, Poland): Provides software that designs ways to make organic molecules; based on cutting-edge AI, it uses chemical datasets to propose novel synthesis pathways within a minute for typical drug-like molecules. 

 

Dr Patrice Milos, Co-Founder and CEO of Medley Genomics, and a previous Winner of the President’s Challenge, said, “As a startup aiming to accelerate precision cancer therapies through deep data analytics to better understand the patient, we were honoured to be recognised by such an important organisation transforming healthcare across the biopharma industry, as The Pistoia Alliance.”

 

For more information on The Pistoia Alliance, please visit: http://www.pistoiaalliance.org/. 

 

–ENDS–

 

About The Pistoia Alliance:

The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members’ organization made up of life science companies, technology and service providers, publishers, and academic groups working to lower barriers to innovation in life science and healthcare R&D. It was conceived in 2007 and incorporated in 2009 by representatives of AstraZeneca, GSK, Novartis and Pfizer who met at a conference in Pistoia, Italy. Its projects transform R&D through pre-competitive collaboration. It overcomes common R&D obstacles by identifying the root causes, developing standards and best practices, sharing pre-competitive data and knowledge, and implementing technology pilots. There are currently over 150 member companies; members collaborate on projects that generate significant value for the worldwide life sciences R&D community, using The Pistoia Alliance’s proven framework for open innovation.

 

Media Contacts:

Spark Communications 

+44 207 436 0420

pistoiaalliance@sparkcomms.co.uk 

 

Carmen Nitsche

The Pistoia Alliance

+001 510-589-3355

carmen.nitsche@pistoiaalliance.org