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Author: David Prior

Annual General Meeting 2019

Posted on by David Prior

All members invited to attend the Pistoia Alliance AGM.

 

Wednesday 4th December 2019 at 16:00 to 17.00 GMT via Webinar

 

All individuals involved in the activities of the Pistoia Alliance within its member companies are cordially invited to attend the Pistoia Alliance Annual General Meeting.

 

Please reserve the time and register for this virtual meeting using the link below:

 

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2336012911066635020

 

The meeting agenda will include:

 

  • Review and finalization of the draft minutes & actions of the 2018 AGM
  • President’s Annual Update
  • Treasurer’s Financial Update
  • Membership & Portfolio Update
  • Results of the 2019 Board Election
  • AOB

 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best regards,
Martyn Wilkins
Secretary, Pistoia Alliance
martyn.wilkins@pistoiaalliance.org
+44 (0)7710 069482

President’s Challenge 2019 – Finalists Announced

Posted on by David Prior

We are delighted to announce the 5 finalists for the Pistoia Alliance President’s Startup Challenge 2019.

 

This year we have solutions covering diagnostics, lab of the future, AI and machine learning, in turn providing benefit to patients and help accelerate innovation and collaboration in R&D. You can find out more about each finalist below.

 

Please contact me directly if you’d like to be put in touch with a particular startup here.

 

They will present their pitches at our members US Conference in Boston on October 23rd.

 

The finalists are:

 

(https://arctoris.com/)

Arctoris allows researchers and biotech entrepreneurs to design and remotely execute advanced cellular and molecular biology research experiments. They offer a complete system to generate, analyse and visualise research data in a secure cloud environment, leveraging the benefits of robotic experimentation, they provide full transparency, precision and consistency in preclinical R&D. Using the Arctoris system, researchers worldwide enjoy accelerated progress in their research, making discoveries faster and more efficiently, whilst being liberated from manual work.

(https://www.labvoice.ai/)

LabVoice brings you the first voice assistant designed specifically for everyday laboratory needs. We know that scientists want to be safe, efficient, and most of all focus on the science. LabVoice gives you a common human-lab interaction, leaving your hands free while we handle the rest. No need to look away or take off your gloves while working in the lab and performing tasks like taking notes, working with software, or using instrumentation. Just say “Hey LabVoice,” and tell us what you need done.

 

(https://molecule.one/)

Molecule.one provides software that designs ways to make organic molecules. Based on cutting-edge AI, their patent-pending technology leverages chemical datasets in order to propose novel synthesis pathways within a minute for typical drug-like molecules. Combined with a robust data curation pipeline and an interface built in accordance with chemists’ needs, Molecule.one aims to become the first market standard in computer-assisted organic synthesis planning.

 

 

 

(https://www.statice.ai/)

Statice offers a data anonymization solution. They enable businesses to stay innovative with smart synthetic data. Their solution empowers companies to work with complex data in a privacy-compliant manner. Data-driven innovation of tomorrow starts with protecting data today.

 

(http://valtaribio.com/)

Valtari Bio is developing a blood test to aid in the rapid triage of suspected stroke patients. Their ReST™ (Rapid evaluation Stroke Triage) test will help clinicians with or without stroke expertise make a confident initial stroke versus no stroke (e.g. complicated migraine, bell’s palsy, vertigo, dizziness, etc.) determination in ten minutes or less.

 

If you’d like to know more about the Pistoia Alliance’s startup challenges and similar events, contact David Proudlock.

President’s Challenge 2019

Posted on by David Prior

The Pistoia Alliance has announced that entries for its 2019 President’s Startup Challenge are now open, and will close on Sunday, 15th September 2019. The annual competition is open to informatics and technology startups who are aiming to overcome obstacles to advancing life science R&D.

 

Two of the winners will win $20,000, along with a six-month mentorship with industry professionals from companies including top ten pharmas and other successful startups.

 

The remaining finalists will each receive $5,000 towards the further development of their solutions.   The prestigious competition offers the chance for five finalists to pitch their solutions in-person to a panel of industry judges and experts at The Pistoia Alliance’s annual US conference in Boston, MA, on 23rd October, 2018.

 

Entries are welcome from global startups on a range of themes including informatics based solutions, digital health focused offerings or emerging technologies or science.

 

Previous winners of the President’s Startup Challenge have included startups such as Riffyn, Pine Biotech, Medley Genomics. Dr Patrice Milos, Co-Founder and CEO of Medley Genomics, and President’s Start-up Challenge Grand Prize Winner in 2017, said of her win, “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.”

 

Dr Steve Arlington, President of The Pistoia Alliance, commented, “The productivity crisis that has challenged the pharmaceutical industry for many years shows no sign of easing. The Pistoia Alliance sees the startup community as a crucial resource to tackle this crisis, and we must support it and improve collaboration across the board. The President’s Challenge allows us to see first hand the innovation which is taking place inside these startups and align our projects with the technology of the future.”   For more details about the challenge and information on how to enter, visit the competition website at: https://www.pistoiaalliance.org/presidents-startup-challenge-2019/

The Pistoia Alliance to Develop a Toolkit to Support Implementation of the FAIR Guiding Principles

Posted on by David Prior

Boston, 17 July, 2019 – The Pistoia Alliance, a global non-profit that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, today announced the launch of its FAIR Implementation project, backed by pharmaceutical companies including Roche, Astra Zeneca, and Bayer. The first project milestone by the end of 2019 will be the release of a freely accessible toolkit to help companies implement the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) guiding principles for data management and stewardship (DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2016.18). As the life sciences industry continues to transform digitally, the sector needs clear and practical guidance on how data and relevant metadata is captured and managed to foster greater collaboration and more effective partnerships.

 

The FAIR guiding principles help to meet this need, but many companies are struggling to implement the guidelines as discussed recently by Wise and co-authors (DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2019.01.008). This need will be addressed by development of the FAIR toolkit which will consist of selected tools, best practices, training materials, use cases, and methodology for change management, which will be assembled together on a user-friendly and freely accessible web site. It will help organizations to undertake their digital transformation, make preparations for the Lab of the Future (LoTF) and to accelerate the application of AI and deep learning.

 

“Roche’s overarching strategy is to become a data driven organization, so we are very excited to help shape and lead on this project. We believe the FAIR guiding principles are vital in helping the entire life science ecosystem benefit from the data the sector is creating. Today, data assets are siloed, stored in varying formats, hard to retrieve and share, and are not interoperable – meaning the knowledge we have already learned can’t be utilized by and extended to a wider audience,” commented Dr. Martin Romacker, Principal Scientist at Roche. “To follow the FAIR guiding principles is a big task for pharmaceutical companies to undertake, but we know everyone is in the same boat and there is no point undergoing this culture shift alone. The Pistoia Alliance is perfectly positioned to drive this change within the industry, and companies need to act with a sense of urgency to implement FAIR if we are going to realize the value of analytical methods such as deep learning based on high quality data.”

 

Life science organizations are becoming increasingly aware that data is a corporate asset, while at the same time, the ‘data deluge’ continues to put scientists under pressure. Data needs to be better managed to build a more collaborative research environment, and made shareable and interoperable, if the industry is to continue making breakthroughs. The FAIR guiding principles for data management and stewardship were published in 2016 by Wilkinson and collaborators to emphasize machine-actionability of well managed data so that computational systems can find, access, interoperate and reuse data with minimal human intervention. This allows humans to cope with the daunting scale of the increasing volume and complexity of data being generated now. FAIR is also crucial for AI and machine learning which benefits from large, harmonized data sets for better predictions.

 

“As a pre-competitive consortium, the Pistoia Alliance is the right body to undertake this project to develop a FAIR toolkit for industry use, which is being supported actively by Pistoia member organisations. The FAIR toolkit will be designed to help industry to implement FAIR in a very practical way. This is because all life science organizations will need to take similar steps on this journey, so all will benefit from collaboration and sharing through this project” commented Ian Harrow, Consultant at The Pistoia Alliance. “This freely accessible FAIR toolkit promises to help the life science industry to harness the explosion of data for much greater productivity in a timely manner.”

 

“We are thrilled to be working with our peers to drive such a crucial change and help forge the path for industry-wide FAIR implementation,” commented Dr. Alexandra Grebe de Barron, IT Business Partner at Bayer. “The development of the FAIR toolkit is coming at a time when life science companies are reviewing how they store and manage data to meet new requirements and undertake digital transformation projects. By collaborating with colleagues and partners we can help to guide the adoption process and culture change required.”

 

The Pistoia Alliance invites more members to join the FAIR Implementation project team to help steer it and ensure it meets industry requirements. The group is also looking for other organizations in the industry to join the Community of Interest and to contribute feedback. To find out more please get in touch: 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 100 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

 

AbVance – new publication submitted

Posted on by David Prior

Pistoia Alliance AbVance: focus on advancing the state of the art in antibody complex modelling for drug discovery. Review on ‘Computational approaches to therapeutic antibody design’ submitted for publication.

 

Members of the Pistoia Alliance AbVance initiative have recently submitted a review entitled “Computational approaches to therapeutic antibody design: established methods and emerging trends” for peer-reviewed publication. In the review we provide a comprehensive overview of the most important antibody-specific databases, modelling, docking and design protocols, giving scientists and antibody engineers a point of reference for available resources. We provide context for these bioinformatics resources in the form of current efforts in the rational design of antibody-based therapeutics and discuss developing trends in the field such as the use of Next Generation Sequencing data to guide antibody drug design and the increasing interest in the application of bioinformatic tools to the discovery and development of diverse antibody-related molecules such as nanobodies.

 

Organizations involved in the discovery and development of antibody therapeutics have a unique opportunity to catalyze the development of the computational antibody methods by participating in data sharing and benchmarking efforts.

 

If you or someone at your organisation is interested in this topic and would like to participate in the AbVance initiative please contact Richard Norman (richard.norman@pistoiaalliance.org), for further information.

Three new use cases identified from Pistoia Alliance blockchain workshop

Posted on by David Prior

Jake Dreier, Pistoia Alliance discusses the outcomes from our Blockchain Use Case Analysis workshop.

The Blockchain Use Case Analysis Workshop on 12 March 2019 was an incredibly exciting experience to be a part of. Representatives from companies around the world gathered to collaborate, analyze, and develop use cases for blockchain technology in Life Sciences R&D. These efforts resulted in multiple use cases with the potential to drive meaningful innovation in the industry.

 

Part of what made the workshop a success, is that it capitalized upon blockchain education the Pistoia Alliance had led for its members since the inception of the Blockchain Community of Interest in Q4 2017. The Pistoia Alliance hit the ground running into 2018, hired a blockchain analyst, and throughout the year led webinars, a blockchain bootcamp, and a blockchain hackathon globally.

 

In the beginning of 2019 I came aboard as the blockchain project manager to continue to drive these efforts forward. My journey into blockchain began in 2015 when I was completing my MBA at Yale. I was fresh off an internship with Goldman Sachs and I was invited by one of my professors to do an independent study on blockchain technology. After graduating and starting my own technology company, I joined SimplyVital Health which utilizes blockchain technology in the healthcare sector. These experiences made me aware of the education and intentionality it takes to develop blockchain use cases. With that said, the fact that the Pistoia Alliance was driving toward a use case workshop also meant that we couldn’t get stuck merely contemplating blockchain’s applications. We needed our members to feel confident moving from theory to action.

 

So at the Pistoia Alliance, we built out programming which would give our members a foundation of knowledge to make the 12 March workshop meaningful. We led a webinar dedicated to the intersection of blockchain and IOT, provided members with educational content on blockchain they could review at their own pace, and led a pre-workshop meeting where participants began to share initial ideas and questions they had for use cases. We then tailored the programming of the workshop to fit the needs and interests of the community.

 

Once the Use Case Analysis Workshop finally began, the Fraunhofer Institute walked Pistoia Alliance members through a methodology for identifying blockchain use cases, analyzing their viability and assessing their potential for impact. Several possible use cases emerged from the workshop and the group selected three which the participants believed could be taken to a proof of concept stage. The three use cases selected by the group were:

 

  • Consent management: Using blockchain and smart contracts to manage patient consent forms.
  • Manufacturing API: Using blockchain to manage the provenance of material from supply chain management to active pharma ingredient (API)
  • ChemChain: Using blockchain to register and identify unique compounds.

 

These use cases will be worked up into proof of concept proposals for the membership to consider.  If you are interested in participating or funding one of those, please get in touch with me (Jake Dreier) at jake.dreier@pistoiaalliance.org or vist https://ip3.pistoiaalliance.org/subdomain/main/end/node/1841

 

Thanks to the Fraunhofer Institute for their help and support in running this event.

 

Jake Dreier is the Blockchain Project Manager for the Pistoia Alliance

HELM Peptide Monomer Guidelines released

Posted on by David Prior

The HELM team is pleased to announce the publication of monomer guidelines for peptides.

 

Monomers are the building blocks of bio-molecules and HELM adopters need to decide what monomers they want to use very early in their journey with HELM. Until now there has been guidance on nucleotide monomers, but limited information on peptides or CHEMs.

 

In additional to providing information to new users, information exchange and analysis is much easier if the principles behind these building blocks are consistent between groups. Working through the issues, a group of highly experienced practitioners from content providers, pharmaceutical companies and vendors have developed detailed recommendations.

 

The guidelines can be accessed on the notation page of our HELM wiki at:

https://pistoiaalliance.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PUB/pages/13795362/HELM+Notation

 

or use this direct link to the Word file

 

We hope these prove useful to our rapidly expanding community.

 

 

For more information on HELM in general see www.OpenHELM.org.

The Pistoia Alliance Calls for Greater Focus on ‘Science not Geography’ in Push for Global Collaboration

Posted on by David Prior

Three-day EU conference covering range of topics examines how technology is driving change in life sciences R&D and improving patients’ health

 

London, 18th March, 2019 – The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not for profit alliance that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, is urging industry stakeholders worldwide to focus on science and not geography, in a call for greater global collaboration. More than 250 attendees at The Pistoia Alliance’s annual EU member conference in London heard from president of The Pistoia Alliance, Dr Steve Arlington, on why innovation in the life sciences relies now more than ever on our willingness to work together across borders. His sentiments were echoed by other keynote speakers, including Professor Mark Caulfield, Interim CEO of Genomics England, and Chris Molloy, CEO of Medicines Discovery Catapult. Throughout the conference, updates were provided on the Alliance’s portfolio of international projects that will make a real difference to research and ultimately to patients, as well as identifying new areas of interest from members.

 

“The focus of all our activities in The Pistoia Alliance is to improve the health of patients around the world, and we can only do this by working together. Scientific progress is too important to be held back by any physical boundaries, and the biggest breakthroughs have always been those that happen across borders,” commented Dr Steve Arlington, President, The Pistoia Alliance. “Against a backdrop of political upheaval in many regions, bringing together members from around the globe to discuss how we can collaborate further is crucial – it’s important that the focus of our industry is on science, not geography. Additionally, we know many in the life sciences face internal pressures to reduce costs and fix issues, yet the best way to do just that is through collaboration. With R&D productivity continuing to be scrutinised, sharing costs and expertise will see all of the industry realise greater value from investing less.”

 

Mark Caulfield from Genomics England spoke about the organisation’s achievements so far, including sequencing more than 104,000 genomes, over 91,000 of which are already accessible for research with linked clinical data. He discussed the vast potential these kinds of data hold, and why genomic data sets must be made available internationally – enabling greater insights from analysis that will aid diagnoses and treatments for all patients. Chris Molloy of Medicines Discovery Catapult echoed the importance of cross-border collaboration and data-sharing in his address, explaining why the life sciences sector must come together to improve how the industry manages ‘smart’ data. He spoke about the fact that three-quarters of UK SMEs today go abroad to access patient data, and why it’s essential those in the life sciences work with patient groups and regulators to change this.

 

“Genomics England currently holds more than 1.6 billion data points – a huge data set that organisations around the world could benefit from,” commented Professor Caulfield. “We are continually looking for ways to engage with industry to build a coalition of researchers that help us to yield more diagnostic value from genomic data. As we make progress towards our next goal of sequencing five million genomes, it will be essential to work together to cut the cost of individual programmes and share our expertise. This kind of collaboration will be made possible within the framework of consortia such as The Pistoia Alliance.”

 

“Networks solve problems and challenge the established way of doing something. Now is the time for our industry to come together and unleash the power of our industry networks such as The Pistoia Alliance to bring new therapeutics faster to patients,” commented Mr Molloy. “This is not just a UK-wide effort but must be linked globally. The UK has deep seams of wisdom and talented UK scientists ready to share data and skills. Its time for the industry collectively to ‘lean in’.”

 

Attendees to the conference converged on a range of topics – including the lab of the future, FAIR principles, data mining, and cloud computing. A panel on real-world data in healthcare was chaired by Dr Dipak Kalra, President of The European Institute for Innovation through Health Data. The week of the conference also featured a series of member events related to the Alliance’s projects, including a symposium on the application of bioinformatics in precision medicine, and a day-long workshop to identify use cases for blockchain in R&D. In addition, a meeting of the Pistoia Alliance Centre of Excellence for AI and Machine Learning in Life Sciences saw the presentation of results from the Rare Disease Repurposing Datathon run during Autumn/Winter 2018 with Elsevier, Mission: Cure and Cures within Reach.

 

For more information about The Pistoia Alliance, please visit: pistoiaalliance.org.

–ENDS—

 

About The Pistoia Alliance:

The Pistoia Alliance is a global, not-for-profit members’ organisation 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:

Carmen Nitsche

Pistoia Alliance

+001 510-589-3355

carmen.nitsche@pistoiaalliance.org

 

Alexandra Walton

Spark Communications

+44 207 436 0420

alex.walton@sparkcomms.co.uk

 

 

The Pistoia Alliance Launches MethodDB Project to Tackle Lab Inefficiency and Support AI Adoption

Posted on by David Prior

Project backed by major pharma will advance the Lab of the Future with proof of concept software to digitise experiment methods

 

Boston, 25 February, 2019 – The Pistoia Alliance, a global not-for-profit that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, today released proof of concept (PoC) software to enable the digitisation of analytical method descriptions, as part of its Method Database (MethodDB) project. Greater digitisation will support the use of AI and deep learning by centralising and standardising experiment descriptions against a common ontology and standardizing structure against a common data model, increasing data integrity and scientific reproducibility.  The Pistoia Alliance collaborated with Allotrope Foundation, using the Allotrope Framework technology stack, to deliver the MethodDB PoC in a collaboration between major pharmaceutical companies including Merck&Co., Inc, Agilent, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AbbVie, as well as software companies OSTHUS and TetraScience.  The MethodDB project is one of the first building blocks in the development of the Lab of The Future (LoTF) and will enable scientists to save considerable amounts of time and money when reproducing experiments on different instruments.

 

“This project is an excellent example of pre-competitive consortia working together to pool resources and expertise,” commented Dr Steve Arlington, President of The Pistoia Alliance. “The project is helping to transform the lab environment, accelerate innovation, and will provide the foundations for successful use of AI platforms in the future. By working together we can help to improve the outcomes of experiments, which in turn will support the development of new life-saving therapies. The MethodDB project covers a complex area and could never be fulfilled by any single entity, so we are pleased to see so many big names in pharma getting on board with this kind of project. We urge more stakeholders to come forward and get involved in this initiative.”

 

In pharma R&D, method recapitulation is difficult and time consuming. Today, most scientists still handwrite their methods, which can easily be six to eight pages long; digitising the method capture process reduces the room for human error. Scientists often have more than 30 instruments in one lab, each with a different user interface, and will have to spend an inordinate amount of time inputting the variables onto each to reproduce a single experiment. A digital instruction set that can be read by the instruments removes this need and frees scientists to focus on more creative and innovative work. Digitising methods resolves a key problem in the laboratory – being able to link methods and results together – and creating an auditable trail. Additionally, from a cyber-security perspective, a centralised storage location creates a much more resilient environment.

 

“We are very excited to help lead this project. At Bristol-Myers Squibb, we are committed to improving how we as an industry work through the application of technology and digital transformation of R&D – and the MethodDB is squarely aligned with this objective,” commented Dr. Dana Vanderwall, Director of Biology & Pre-Clinical IT at Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Allotrope Foundation Board Chair.  “We look forward to continuing the collaboration between The Pistoia Alliance and Allotrope Foundation that is driving innovative digital technology into real world applications such as the MethodDB- a tangible example of the kind of capabilities that will help define the Lab of the Future”.

 

This proof of concept is for High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) systems and will be extended to other analytical chemistry methods in the future. It currently covers 30 parameters common across HPLC systems and records them. The PoC uses the Allotrope Data Format for one standardised way of recording the method and will undergo lab testing to further develop the system. The Pistoia Alliance is looking for both pharmaceutical companies, instrument vendors, and service organisations, to come forward and support phase two of the project. To join the MethodDB project please get in touch with Gerhard Noelken (gerhard.noelken@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

 

Pistoia Alliance – Elsevier Datathon

Posted on by David Prior

Participants used the AI environment created by Elsevier’s Entellect platform in collaborative effort to discover potential treatments.

 

, , 2019 – Rare Disease Day – A unique non-profit and private partnership using a datathon and an AI-powered technology platform has identified new repurposable drug candidates to treat a painful chronic disease affecting about a million people globally and for which there is no current treatment. 

 

Elsevier, the information analytics business specializing in science and health, and The Pistoia Alliance, a global, non-profit alliance working to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences, have announced the results of a joint datathon for Drug Repurposing for Rare Diseases. The datathon, conducted in partnership with non-profit groups, Cures Within Reach and Mission: Cure, involved participants from a range of organizations including life sciences, technology and academia, and has succeeded in identifying new drug candidates for repurposing to treat chronic pancreatitis. 

 

The drug candidates below have passed the expert review panel and are being actively considered by Mission: Cure, with a view to proceeding to patient trials (see Appendices): 

 

  • Lacosamide to target Cathepsin B 
  • Dapsone to target the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator 
  • Rolipram to target Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a) 
  • Prednisolone to target Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a) 

 

“The results of the datathon show that by working in unison, we can achieve breakthroughs that will have a real impact on patients’ lives,” said Dr. Steve Arlington, President, The Pistoia Alliance. “In life sciences today, no one company has the resources to ‘go it alone.’ The datathon was the perfect opportunity to bring all the relevant experts together and pool our knowledge and resources. The results are very promising, and we look forward to seeing these therapies reach those in need.”  

 

The datathon had participants apply AI, machine learning and statistical techniques, using Elsevier’s Entellect platform, to a real-world problem such as drug repurposing. Using Entellect with clinical, pharmaceutical and biochemical data, participants were able to identify suitable drugs to be repositioned to treat chronic pancreatitis. This involved the use of multiple techniques, including target-based drug discovery, examining the perturbance of a drug on a specific gene known to be disease-modifying, and symptomatic-based drug discovery (i.e., examining the perturbance of a drug on the body). Entellect was specifically developed to tackle real-world life science challenges such as this – with the positive results from the datathon validating the need for such purpose-built tech solutions.  

 

“We are very excited about the discoveries made in the Elsevier Entellect/Pistoia Alliance datathon. The problem-solving and teamwork focused on chronic pancreatitis was very exciting. We look forward to taking the promising candidates to the next step where we hope they will help us find effective treatments for this difficult, rare disease,” said Megan Golden, co-founder and co-director, Mission: Cure. 

  

“Within 30 to 60 days of starting the datathon, drug candidates with really good repurposing opportunities came out. In such a short space of time, a small group of people using AI were able to achieve incredible things by showing mechanism of action,” said Bruce Bloom, CEO, Cures Within Reach. 

 

“The goal of the datathon was to identify drug candidates for repurposing by using predictive analytics techniques, and we also wanted to explore best practice in the use of data science,” said Dr. Jabe Wilson, Consulting Director, Text and Data Analytics, Elsevier. “This was the first public trial for our Entellect platform and it’s been a great success on all fronts. I want to thank all our partners and participants for their time and commitment to achieving this positive outcome.”  

 

The project was sponsored by the top 20 pharma companies through The Pistoia Alliance, and all participants had access to a life science-specific AI environment through Elsevier’s Entellect platform; allowing them to seamlessly perform all steps of the machine learning pipeline. Each participant was able to use Entellect to go from exploratory data analysis and data preprocessing, to feature engineering, model building, validation and comparison, and finally result visualization and model deployment. In addition, participants had access to Elsevier datasets, such as Reaxys, PharmaPendium and Pathway Studio, as well as the ability to upload their own datasets into the environment to incorporate them into their analytics workflow. The full results of the datathon are set to be announced at The Pistoia Alliance ‘Centre of Excellence for AI/ML in Life Sciences’ workshop in London on March 12th. 

 

Appendix A 

The following drug candidates have been approved by the expert panel and, pending further testing, will hopefully be shared with patients very soon. 

Target  Candidate drug 
Cathepsin B is in humans encoded by the CTSB gene. Cathepsin B belongs to a family of lysosomal cysteine proteases and plays an important role in intracellular proteolysis.  Lacosamide is a medication for the adjunctive treatment of partial-onset seizures and diabetic neuropathic pain. 
The CFTR gene provides instructions for making a protein called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator. This protein functions as a channel across the membrane of cells that produce mucus, sweat, saliva, tears, and digestive enzymes.  Dapsone, is an antibiotic commonly used in combination with rifampicin and clofazimine for the treatment of leprosy. It is a second-line medication for the treatment and prevention of pneumocystis pneumonia and for the prevention of toxoplasmosis in those who have poor immune function. 
Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a) is a cell signaling protein (cytokine) involved in systemic inflammation.  Rolipram is a blood-brain-barrier permeable, phosphodiesterase type IV inhibitor that reduces breakdown of cAMP and has various neuroprotective properties including anti-inflammatory actions and inhibitory effects on excitatory amino acid toxicity. 
Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a) is a cell signaling protein (cytokine) involved in systemic inflammation.  Prednisolone is a steroid medication used to treat certain types of allergies, inflammatory conditions, autoimmune disorders and cancers. 

Appendix B 

Specific thanks to Bruce Aronow, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center Research; and Aleksandar Poleksic University of Northern Iowa, for their outstanding contributions to the project. 

 

The Expert Review Panel was comprised of: 

  • Anna Gukovskaya – UCLA (University of California)  
  • Michael Wilschanski – The Hadassah Medical Hospital  
  • Stephen Pandol – Cedars-Sinai Healthcare  
  • Andrea Geisz – Boston University  
  • Anthony Ford-Hutchinson – Ford-Hutchinson Consulting Limited  
  • Mark Haupt – Ariel Precision Medicine 

 

— 

 

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 158 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 Cures Within Reach 

Cures Within Reach improves patient quality and length of life by leveraging the speed, safety and cost-effectiveness of medical repurposing research, driving more treatments to more patients more quickly. Cures Within Reach is the philanthropic leader in drug, device and nutraceutical repurposing research, which has the potential to transform the lives of patients with unsolved diseases by delivering treatments that can be used in the near-term. Why do we care? Learn more about the current state of drug development here! 

 

About Mission: Cure 

Mission: Cure was founded in 2017 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to discovering life-altering therapies and bringing them to patients. Mission: Cure aims to demonstrate a faster, more efficient model for curing disease – starting with pediatric and adult chronic and recurrent acute pancreatitis, using an innovative funding model based on improved patient outcomes. Learn more about the pancreatitis quest for a cure here!  

 

About Elsevier 

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps institutions and professionals advance healthcare, open science and improve performance for the benefit of humanity. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support and professional education, including ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, 38,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray’s Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries. www.elsevier.com 

 

Media contact 

 

 

 

 

Image credit:
Alex Kotliarskyi

HELM Test Set now released

Posted on by David Prior

The HELM team is pleased to announce the publication of a set of HELM strings that can be used by external groups to test their HELM implementations.

 

The set includes HELM1 and HELM2 plus in-line HELM and includes expected results for calculations and whether the HELM string should pass validation or not.  There are around 150 examples covering the wide range of complex biomolecules that HELM supports.

 

We hope this will add to the suite of tools, documentation and code we offer HELM adopters and offer additional security that HELM will remain a robust and secure standard for the future.

 

The test set can be accessed on the HELM notation page of our wiki at:

 

https://pistoiaalliance.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PUB/pages/13795362/HELM+Notation

 

or use this direct link to the Excel file

 

 

For more information on HELM in general see www.OpenHELM.org.

Pistoia Alliance Launches Next Phase of Blockchain Project

Posted on by David Prior

The Pistoia Alliance Launches Next Phase of Blockchain Project to Develop Life Science R&D Use Cases

 

Industry workshop will unlock blockchain’s potential in data identity, data integrity and data sharing

 

Boston, 6th February, 2019 – The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit alliance that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, is today launching the next phase of its blockchain project. This phase will focus on the development of practical life science R&D use cases that deliver clear ROI, as well as identifying which applications of blockchain will provide little value to the industry. The Pistoia Alliance will work with members to examine three areas blockchain has potential to improve; data identity (validating where and who data has come from), data integrity (ensuring data hasn’t been tampered with), and data sharing (within and between organisations). This latest chapter of the project follows the extensive work the Alliance has already undertaken to educate the industry about blockchain and support the sharing of knowledge and skills.

 

“The Pistoia Alliance has always been led by its members on which industry issues to focus on, and blockchain is becoming increasingly relevant to our community – from start-ups, to big pharma, to technology service providers,” said Dr Steve Arlington, President of The Pistoia Alliance. “We believe blockchain has an important role to play in the life science sector and want to solidify use cases now so the whole industry can realise the value sooner. By working together on this aim, we can ensure that our efforts are not duplicated and that even more stakeholders can benefit. Much of the industry is still at the ‘discussion’ stage of blockchain, we want to move beyond this and take action that actively supports members and leads to tangible outcomes that will benefit R&D, accelerate innovation and support the discovery of new treatments.”

 

Understanding the value of blockchain is still a challenge, with research of life science professionals from The Pistoia Alliance in 2018 finding the biggest barriers to adoption of the technology are access to skilled personnel (55 percent), and that blockchain is too difficult to understand (16 percent). Almost a fifth of those questioned believe blockchain adds no value beyond a traditional database. The Pistoia Alliance is working with members to address misunderstandings by providing education and information, as well as running webinars and workshops to support those interested in implementing the technology. This includes a dedicated workshop in London open to members and non-members, at which The Pistoia Alliance’s blockchain interest community will aim to develop at least one of the potential use cases to the proof-of-concept stage.

 

“There are still many misconceptions about blockchain in the life science industry that we need to work hard to overcome,” said Jake Dreier, Blockchain Project Manager and Consultant for The Pistoia Alliance. “Unfortunately, people’s perceptions have led to some organisations completely avoiding blockchain technology, and many others unsure of how it can benefit them. This is why The Pistoia Alliance is supporting a collaborative effort to help the industry get the most out of the technology. We want companies to come together to workshop their issues and ideas to decide where blockchain can provide a viable solution. We’re not trying to shoehorn a blockchain solution into every industry problem, but rather working to support its development where the technology truly adds value to the industry and ultimately, to patients’ care.”

 

The Pistoia Alliance will be hosting its ‘Blockchain – R&D Use Case Analysis Workshop’ in London on 12th March 2019 to evaluate the applicability of blockchain technology in a variety of R&D-focused use cases. The event will be supported by Fraunhofer FIT, a research institute for digitisation providing user-friendly smart solutions for R&D. The workshop is open to both Pistoia Alliance members, for free, and non-members, for a fee. You can find more information, and instructions on how to register, here.

–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 100 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 Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT:

 

For about 30 years now Fraunhofer FIT has been conducting R&D on user-friendly smart solutions that blend seamlessly in business processes. Its clients benefit from more efficient processes and increased quality, internal connectivity and staff satisfaction. About 160 researchers work in interdisciplinary teams and support companies in digitization, Industry 4.0 projects and IoT solutions. Further fields of application are blockchain technology, life science informatics, cooperation and innovation management in combination with mixed and augmented reality applications, energy efficiency and business informatics.

 

 

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