News

InterSystems announces new partnership to accelerate oncology drug discovery

InterSystems has announced a new partnership with the biopharmaceutical company, Oncodesign, which will focus on optimising data use to enhance drug discovery processes in oncology.

The health data management, technology and software provider signed up for the strategic partnership with the aim of harnessing the power of data to advance research for new treatments.

The partnership will bring together expertise in data science, artificial intelligence, pharmacology, chemistry, biology and clinical research.

As part of the collaboration, the InterSystems IRIS for Health data platform will be integrated into Oncodesign’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Business Unit for the storage and management of preclinical and clinical data sources. By analysing and using the newly consolidated data, the AI BU will then optimise the development of OncoSNIPER, a proprietary platform for the identification and validation of new therapeutic targets.

Michel Amous, Regional Director EMEA at InterSystems, said: “We are delighted to begin this partnership with Oncodesign, which has been a major player in the biotechnology industry for 25 years. Our goal is to provide them with our expertise in optimising data platforms to build a new intelligent architecture for oncology research.

“The pooling of health data – scattered, heterogeneous but so valuable – is not just a simple operational consolidation. It is a project with strategic scope aimed at aggregating the various sources of data available to Oncodesign in order to improve communication between them. This dynamic governance will enable Oncodesign to remain at the forefront of biopharmaceutical innovation and, ultimately, to commercialise new therapeutic solutions to better serve the public interest.”

InterSystems will also provide Oncodesign with the benefit of its international network of strategic academic partners and the announcement fits in with the company’s commitment to oncology, exemplified by its work over the years with major cancer centres through its patient administrative and clinical management solution, InterSystems TrakCare.

Oncodesign also recently unveiled its new headquarters in Dijon, which is set to house its specialist AI teams. The new partnership is a part of its strategic development based around AI. It will be using the InterSystems IRIS for Health data platform to structure its clinical data, before implementing algorithms to select sub-populations of patients with treatment-resistant cancers.

Philippe Genne, Chairman and CEO of Oncodesign, stated: “We have known the InterSystems teams well for several years, and we are therefore very pleased to formalise our collaboration through this ambitious partnership. Our expertise at Oncodesign is in developing new treatments and InterSystems’ is in leveraging data to accelerate the digital transformation of companies.

“Together, we will be able to pool our respective fields of expertise in order to make our drug discovery process in precision medicine more reliable and even faster. Traditionally, the lead optimisation phase alone can last up to three years and cost between 10 and 12 million euros, with random results in the medium term (1/10 success rate). Today, artificial intelligence is changing the game: the exploitation of data gives us the possibility to make more informed choices in increasingly rapid timeframes.”