David Prior, Author at Pistoia Alliance

Winners of Pistoia Alliance Mini Start Up Challenge Announced

Posted on 21 April 2016 by David Prior

Wilmington, DE, 21 April 2016 – AIME has won the inaugural Pistoia Alliance Mini Start-Up Challenge following a closely fought contest. Alongside this, xRapid was also voted as the audience winner at the Pistoia Alliance European Conference, in London.

The Pistoia Alliance, an organization dedicated to improving global life sciences R&D, established the challenge to support innovative new start-ups with the potential to improve life sciences R&D.

AIME was announced the winner of the overall contest and will receive a prize of €10,000 and three months mentorship from a senior member of the Pistoia Alliance. xRapid, the winner of the audience vote will receive €5,000 while the finalists will each receive €1,000.

AIME, a mobile app, can be used to predict disease outbreaks three months in advance using artificial intelligence, epidemiology and public health expertise. The app is currently at 88.62 percent accuracy, and can be used to provide information to public health officers, saving lives and money.

Dr Dhesi Raja, from AIME, said: “It is time we revolutionize public health by moving from a reactive approach to a proactive one. Its time we stop deadly outbreaks in advance & save more lives. Today, the Pistoia Alliance demonstrated that the path towards better health resides in preventive medicine, validating our motto of Predicting Diseases, Saving Lives.”

xRapid are developing a digital diagnostic test for tuberculosis. Current diagnostic techniques take up to six weeks, but using a combination of digital image processing and artificial intelligence the xRapid mobile app aims to be able to diagnose tuberculosis quicker, more cheaply and as accurately as an expert microscopist.

Jean Viry-Babel, CEO of xRapid, said: “At xRapid, we are thrilled to have won the public vote. We are pleased that the members of the Pistoia Alliance were able to see the potential of the XRapid Automated Diagnostic App. This event has been a great platform to showcase our innovative technology in front of the pharmaceutical industry.”

Steve Arlington, President of the Pistoia Alliance, said: “Supporting start-up companies is a crucial component of the Pistoia Alliance’s future strategy. Start-ups are one of the best sources for innovation, and I am delighted to say our finalists this year did not disappoint. We have had an incredible range of companies enter, with new techniques in medicine, research, public health and agriculture all competing.”

Finalists of Pistoia Alliance Mini Start Up Challenge Announced

Posted on 13 April 2016 by David Prior

Wilmington, DE – The Pistoia Alliance, an organization dedicated to improving global life sciences R&D, has announced the finalists of its inaugural Mini Start Up Challenge.

The Challenge has been set up to support innovative new start-ups which have the potential to improve life sciences R&D. The finalists announced today include companies from across Europe and the USA.

The finalists have all developed a range of novel technologies in the mobile or wearable category of life science solutions. They include Agewell Biometrics, AIME, Smartbell, MedexPrim and xRapid.

Agewell Biometrics has developed a product called Equilibrium™, a cloud based analytics platform that uses wearable and mobile sensor data to measure strength, balance and function in older adults in order to identify those at risk of falls. The reporting dashboard allows for goal setting and the recommendation engine gives evidence based suggestions for preventative exercises and lifestyle modifications.

Smartbell has developed a platform for the dairy industry, which uses wearable devices for livestock, providing actionable insights and predictive analytics for resource planning, improving milk yield, fertility rates and livestock health.

Medexprim builds software solutions that enable easy secondary use of routine medical images for research. Their solution allows researchers to extract relevant exams from image archives called PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System), route them towards quantification software, and share post-processing parameters and results. By linking the quantified data with existing information it will be possible to better understand the developing mechanisms of pathologies, find new predictive models of treatment efficiency, and enable the realization of new types of epidemiology and pharmacovigilance studies.

The shortlisted companies will now go into the final where the winner of the competition will receive a prize of €10,000 and three months mentorship from a senior member of the Pistoia Alliance. The finalists will each receive a prize of €1,000. In addition there will be an audience vote on the night of the awards where the winner will receive €5,000.

Steve Arlington, President of the Pistoia Alliance, said: “I am delighted that the inaugural Mini Start-Up contest has attracted such a strong and interesting range of companies. The Pistoia Alliance sees start-ups as crucial in improving life sciences R&D globally and by helping innovative new companies we can better promote these new ideas, helping the life sciences R&D community as a whole.”

Pistoia Alliance Announces New Members

Posted on 6 April 2016 by David Prior

At the Pistoia Alliance we are continuing our growth with the arrival of a number of new members in the first quarter of 2016.

The new members are drawn from across Europe and North America and include IPQ Analytics, Monocl Software, SciBite and Louis Fisher. They all have a strong focus on big data, a key part of our focus on emerging technologies.

Our ability to attract new members is critical to the future of the Alliance. In particular, start-up companies and those working in innovative technology areas will ensure our continued relevance to the industry as a whole.

We have seen strong growth in the past twelve months, and have seen our membership and project teams expand to include an ever wider range of companies from traditional big pharma and established technology vendors to start-ups working on cutting-edge innovation.

The Pistoia Alliance and quattro research GmbH announce ambiguity support for HELM

Posted on 4 April 2016 by David Prior

Munich, April 4, 2016 – The Pistoia Alliance, a global alliance of life science companies, vendors, publishers, and academic groups and quattro research GmbH are pleased to announce the release of a major new extension to the HELM notation standard and toolkit. The new functionality enables HELM to support the representation of biomolecules with some structural uncertainty or ambiguity.

As the therapeutic utilization of complex and non-standard biomolecules has become commonplace in drug discovery R&D, scientists have struggled to represent these entities in their information systems, forcing them to use very non-standard “pick and mix” approaches that include multiple nomenclatures and textual descriptions. HELM, the open biomolecular representation standard, has solved this problem by providing a means to represent multiple types of complex macromolecules (e.g. nucleotides, proteins, antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates) including those that contain non-natural elements such as chemically modified amino acids.

The Pistoia Alliance formalized the HELM notation, originally created by Pfizer scientists, as an open standard in early 2013 and publicly released the related software toolkit and editor to the Open Source community. Since its release, HELM has benefited from a growing ecosystem of global adopters and contributors that includes organizations such as ACD Labs, Arxspan, Biomax, Biovia, BMS, ChemAxon, EMBL-EBI, eMolecules, GSK, Ionis, Merck, NextMove, Novartis, Pfizer, quattro research, Roche, and Scilligence.

While the original HELM solved the problem of representing unnatural complex biomolecules, it held the basic assumption that a scientist would know everything about the structures being represented. In biology, however, this is not always the case, as a various types of ambiguity or uncertainty may exist in some of these structures. A typical example is when the exact conjugation site of an antibody-drug conjugate cannot be determined. This left scientists with a difficult choice: either record a best guess of what the structure is, or simply describe the structure textually instead of structurally, creating a gap in their corporate structural registries. HELM 2.0 enables scientists to incorporate into their structural representation a systematic description of a number of forms of ambiguity, thus allowing for the rigorous representation of structures, even when uncertainty is present.

In addition to the representation of ambiguity, the HELM 2.0 toolkit provides a couple of additional enhancements that will make it easier for companies to integrate HELM into their infrastructure:

An API that allows the toolkit to leverage different cheminformatics software libraries
A set of web services that abstract the toolkit functionality from the toolkit code to facilitate calls to and from other software

“HELM had already significantly improved researchers’ ability to rigorously represent complex macromolecules. However, there was still a gap when it came to dealing with the very real-world scenario of structural uncertainty or ambiguity. Through this partnership with quattro research, we have implemented a pragmatic solution to this problem that further enhances the capabilities and applicability of the standard,” said Sergio Rotstein, Director of Research Business Technology at Pfizer and Domain Lead for the Pistoia Alliance HELM initiative.

Markus Weisser, Managing Director at quattro research GmbH adds: “HELM is designed as an open source project. Hence, in addition to ambiguity support, it was important that we remove third party dependencies and provide a more service-oriented architecture. This lowers the barriers to utilizing HELM and contributing to its development, and will enable more individuals and organizations to join the HELM community. Over the past two years, quattro research has become a leading expert in HELM and its extensions. Previously we helped to develop the Exchangeable HELM (xHELM) extension and contributed to the development of the HELM Antibody Editor. We are very proud to have built on this work in the development of HELM 2.0.”

About quattro research GmbH:

quattro research GmbH is a software and service company located in Munich, Germany. quattro research offers services and products for data management in the pharmaceutical, chemical, and biotech industry. The primary focus of the company is the development of tools and services for compound registration and analysis of biological data. Within several projects, quattro research developed extensive knowledge in the management and registration of biologics, e.g. antibodies and peptides. For further information see www.quattro-research.com or email weisser@quattro-research.com.

Speakers Confirmed for Pistoia Alliance European Conference

Posted on 1 March 2016 by David Prior

2016 Conference Will See New Pistoia Alliance Strategy Announced

Wilmington, DE, 1^st March 2016 – The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit alliance of life science organizations that work together to lower barriers to innovation in R&D, has announced the lineup of speakers for its 2016 European Conference.

The conference which be held at King’s College, London, on 19^th April 2016, will see a number of speakers from across the Pistoia Alliance and connected organizations debate a number of important issues in life sciences research and development. In addition to this, the Pistoia Alliance’s recently appointed President, Steve Arlington, will announce the organization’s new strategy.

The panel sessions will focus on three main themes: mobile and wearable technology, robotics, and big data. In addition to the panel debates there will also be an award ceremony for the winners of the 2015 President’s Startup Challenge, and a chance for the audience to vote for the winners of the 2016 Mini Startup Challenge.

Confirmed panelists include representatives from MedCity, Qualcomm Life, Autodesk, Dassault Systèmes, AstraZeneca, DNAdigest, 23andMe, MedImmune, HELIX, and Genomics England.

Richard Holland, Executive Director Operations at the Pistoia Alliance, commented: “We have a very strong line-up for this year’s European conference, coupled with some very interesting topics that are of critical importance for life sciences research and development. Combined with the award ceremony for the winners of our inaugural President’s Startup Challenge and the live audience vote for our first ever Mini Startup Challenge, I anticipate a very exciting conference. The conference will provide delegates with an important first opportunity to hear about the new Pistoia Alliance strategy.”

Following the conference there will be a reception which all conference participants are welcome to attend, during which the winners of the Mini Startup Challenge will be announced.

For full details of the conference agenda please refer to: http://www.pistoiaalliance.org/PISTOIAEUR16

Pistoia Alliance Announces Second Phase of Ontologies Mapping Project

Posted on 1 March 2016 by David Prior

Wilmington, DE, 1st March 2016 – The Pistoia Alliance Ontologies Mapping project, which creates guidelines, tools and services for ontologies mapping and management in Life Science Research and Development, has announced the start of its second phase.

Ontologies and controlled vocabularies are becoming increasingly important as life science researchers utilize standardized resources to improve their ability to exploit large amounts of complex data. The first phase of the Ontologies Mapping project successfully delivered the requirements for a mapping tool, a community of interest and guidelines for evaluation of ontologies.

Phase two of the project will see the team encourage adoption of guidelines for best practice, develop a process to evaluate and select at least one ontologies mapping tool and define the requirements for an ontology mapping service for implementation by late 2016. This will enable the Pistoia Alliance to support the practical application of ontologies by the life science research community.

Richard Holland, Executive Director Operations at the Pistoia Alliance, commented: “The Ontologies Mapping project has significant potential for all of our members, whether large multi-national companies, small start-ups, or academic institutions, so we expect its output will be adopted widely. With phase one having been completed successfully, delivering a community of interest, guidelines and tool requirements, I am confident that the second phase will continue to deliver value to the community through encouraging adoption of the guidelines and continuing the development of the mapping tool and services.”

The second phase of the Ontologies Mapping project builds on the success of the Pistoia Alliance’s other ongoing projects, HELM (Hierarchical Editing Language for Macromolecules) and the CSCS Expert Community (Controlled Substances Compliance Services), both of which have seen widespread adoption of their outputs throughout the life sciences industry. The Pistoia Alliance is also developing new projects that include the Chemical Safety Library and the Map of Alliances. In addition, the Pistoia Alliance is running a series of Startup Challenges that encourage startups from around the world to compete for a cash prize and mentorship from Pistoia Alliance members.

Winners Announced for Pistoia Alliance President’s Startup Challenge 2015

Posted on 17 February 2016 by David Prior

Repositive and Novaseek Awarded $15k Each Plus Mentorship

Wilmington, DE – Repositive Ltd. (UK) and Novaseek Research LLC (USA) are the winners of the inaugural 2015 edition of the Pistoia Alliance President’s Startup Challenge.

Repositive is a software company developing novel tools to improve access to human genomic research data, while Novaseek is a health technology company that provides access to an extensive supply of clinically annotated human biospecimens and clinical data from consenting patients.

The winners of the competition each receive a cash prize of US$15,000 and a period of six months of expert mentorship from a senior industry figure drawn from the Pistoia Alliance membership.

The contest has been a huge success and has attracted over 30 entries from around the world.

Dr Steve Arlington, President of the Pistoia Alliance, said: “My congratulations to Repositive and Novaseek for their success in winning the top prize. Both companies have developed excellent technologies which support the Pistoia Alliance’s core aim of supporting innovation in life sciences research and development. Start-up companies are a major part of the future of the life sciences industry, and the two winners of the Pistoia Alliance President’s Challenge are excellent examples of how the demand for new ideas and approaches is being met by the start-up community. All the entries we received were of a very high standard and our judges had a tough task choosing between them.”

Fiona Nielsen, CEO of Repositive, said: “We are delighted to have won this prize. Repositive has made great progress thanks to the feedback of our partners and users, and winning this award is a strong validation of the value we bring to the genomics R&D industry – especially for facilitating pre-competitive data collaborations and simplifying data access. I am also pleased to see the Pistoia Alliance supporting an increasing range of companies across the life sciences sector through initiatives such as this.”

Dr. Kate Torchilin, CEO of Novaseek Research said: “Novaseek is honored to receive this award. Going through the rigorous process of judging and working with our mentor at Pistoia allowed us to substantially enhance our Clinical Data Network for Research platform, the industry’s first comprehensive platform for accessing clinical data and human biospecimens that are essential for understanding diseases and developing medical advances.”

Agenda announced for our European Conference 2016 in London

Posted on 11 February 2016 by David Prior

kcl-entrance

A mobile app for iOS and Android is available for this event, containing the agenda, directions, floor plans, and other useful information. For users of other types of smartphone a subset of the app content is shown below.

PLEASE NOTE: There will be tube strikes in London on the 19th-22nd April that will close the Piccadilly line (dark blue). The tube stations at Heathrow will be closed as a result. Please plan your journey to avoid this line. The TfL journey planner may help.

Free wifi access is provided at the conference venue by The Cloud. Please connect to “_The Cloud” and follow the instructions, or refer to this connection guide.

We are pleased to announce the full agenda for our 2016 European Conference. If you’d like to attend, please register now! The one-day event for members and invited guests only has been planned around three panel discussions on current hot topics in life sciences R&D, and will include presentation of the winners of the President’s Startup Challenge 2015 and the live judging and audience choice voting for the Mini Startup Challenge 2016.

Here is the planned agenda for April 19th – open to members and invited guests only:

8.00am: Registration
8.30am: Welcome and introduction
9.00am: Panel: Mobile and Wearables
- Chair: Steve Arlington, President, Pistoia Alliance
- Panelists:
  - Sarah Haywood, CEO, MedCity
  - Yury Rozenman, Director of Business Development, Qualcomm Life
  - Richard Kwasnicki, Imperial College London
  - Gareth King, Catapult Ventures
10.35am: Coffee
11.00am: Panel: Robotics
- Chair: Ashley George, Treasurer, Pistoia Alliance
- Panelists:
  - Andrew Hessel, Distinguished Research Scientist, Autodesk
  - Ted Pawella, Sr. Director Portfolio & Product Management, BIOVIA, Dassault Systemes
  - Steve Rees, Vice-President of Screening Sciences and Sample Management, AstraZeneca
12.35pm: Lunch
1.30pm: Panel: Big Data
- Chair: Fiona Neilsen, CEO, DNAdigest
- Panelists:
  - Adam Auton, Senior Statistical Geneticist, 23andMe
  - Mathew Woodwark, Director of Research Bioinformatics, MedImmune
  - Eric Little, VP Data Science, Osthus
3.05pm: Coffee
3.30pm: Startup Challenges
- President’s Startup Challenge 2015: Winner Awards
- Mini Startup Challenge 2016: Pitches, Live Judging, and Audience Voting
4.45pm: Closing notes
5.00pm-8.00pm: Reception (sponsored by GeneDX Genomics Solutions)
- Mini Startup Challenge 2016 results with Gareth King, Investment Manager, Catapult Ventures

If you haven’t already registered for our European conference then please register now!

Please note that the conference is open only to Pistoia Alliance Core and Participating members, the Pistoia Alliance leadership, and invited special guests.

Case Studies

A selection of case studies from the conference app are reproduced here for your reference.

Extra information for board members only

Dinner: 19th April, 8.15pm: The Yacht, Temple Pier, Victoria Embankment, London WC2R 2PN (permanently moored on the river immediately behind KCL’s Strand Campus) – booked in the name of Richard Holland
Meeting: 20th April, 8.30am-12.30pm: Elsevier, 125 London Wall, London EC2Y 5AS. Closest tube stops are Moorgate (closest), St Paul’s, London Bank or Barbican. Meet Tim Hoctor in reception no later than 8.20am. Lunch provided 12.30-1.30pm.

Pistoia Alliance Launches Mini-Startup Challenge

Posted on 10 February 2016 by David Prior

New contest will focus on mobile health and data and wearable technologies

Wilmington, DE, 10^th February 2016– The Pistoia Alliance has launched a new startup competition, the Pistoia Alliance Mini Startup Challenge, which will look to encourage innovative start up companies in the life sciences field with technologies in mobile health and data, wearable technologies and the internet of things. Entries that address current global healthcare challenges are particularly encouraged.

The winner of the competition will receive a prize of €10,000 and three months mentorship from a senior member of the Pistoia Alliance, while the finalists will each receive a prize of €1,000. In addition there will be an audience vote on the night of the awards where the winner will receive €5,000.

The competition will be looking for winners that support the Pistoia Alliance’s aims of supporting pre-competitive collaboration and lowering barriers to innovation. These include assisting or advancing life science research and development processes and capabilities, providing solutions to enhance and improve clinical research, delivering solutions to automate or augment laboratory research efforts and processes, and enable scientific discovery or provide patient benefit.

Entry is via the Pistoia Alliance website, and entrants will be required to submit an overview of the business, alongside a business plan. The competition will close on March 16^th, and finalists will be notified on April 1^st. The winners will be announced at the Pistoia Alliance European Conference on April 19^th.

Richard Holland, Executive Director Operations at the Pistoia Alliance, said: “Improving the use of data and the development of wearable technologies are significant challenges to the life sciences industry, and we need to ensure we use the full range of resources at our disposal. This challenge aims to support smaller companies and start ups, many of whom are developing innovative new technology and ideas that could have a significant impact on future life science R&D. We hope this challenge will provide a boost for innovative companies in these increasingly crucial fields.”

Pistoia Alliance Starts 2016 with Strong Membership Growth

Posted on 20 January 2016 by David Prior

New members include Elsevier, KWS and Ionis Pharmaceuticals

Wilmington, DE – The Pistoia Alliance welcomed a host of new members at the start of 2016, further enhancing its position as a global, not-for-profit alliance of life science organizations that work together to lower barriers to innovation in R&D.

The new members represent a broad cross-section of the life sciences industry, including established pharmaceutical companies, companies that play a role in supporting life sciences research, academic consortia, and newly launched start ups.

The full list of new members includes Elsevier, KWS, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, IMGT, FactBio, Informatics Unlimited, Savdion, and a number of independent experts and consultants.

Tim Hoctor, Vice President, Life Science Solutions Services at Elsevier, said: “Joining the Pistoia Alliance presents us with a range of new opportunities to engage with the life sciences industry and bring us new insights into the challenges that face it, which will in turn help us deliver greater value to our customers. We will also be able to get actively involved in developing common standards and solutions to industry-wide problems by taking part in the Pistoia Alliance’s unique pre-competitive collaborative projects.”

Steve Arlington, President of the Pistoia Alliance, said: “I am delighted to welcome our new members to the Pistoia Alliance. The Pistoia Alliance today brings together many organizations’ from a broad range of disciplines who work together to solve problems they cannot tackle alone. Our members work tirelessly to innovate across the whole of the healthcare ecosystem. Our new members add to the breadth and depth of our capabilities. By fostering an environment where we can pool our knowledge and work together on difficult problems and solve them, we feel we are making good progress in many of our projects .”

Projects

Communities

Author: David Prior