Programs Include a Systematic Approach to Drug Repurposing &
Data-Driven, Proactive Chronic Disease Management -- Both Fueled by the
IBM Watson Health Cloud
Collaboration Features First Integration of The Weather Company data
with IBM Watson Health Cloud
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 26, 2016--
IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Teva
Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., (NYSE and TASE:TEVA) today announce
a significant expansion of their existing global e-Health alliance with
a focus on two key healthcare challenges: the discovery of new treatment
options and improving chronic disease management. Both projects will run
on the IBM Watson Health Cloud.
The expanded partnership features a new, three-year research
collaboration to develop cognitive technologies that can enable a
systematic approach to the emerging field of drug repurposing and
deliver unprecedented scale in the discovery of new uses for existing
drugs. The companies also announced that respiratory and central nervous
system (CNS) diseases will be the first targets for their chronic
disease management initiative, which will be the first project to
integrate data from The Weather Company (an IBM Business) into the
analysis. The joint work in chronic disease management emerges from
Teva’s existing alliance with IBM as a Foundational
Life Sciences Partner for the IBM Watson Health Cloud.
Today’s announcement is made in conjunction with a presentation on the
main stage at the World
of Watson conference by Professor Yitzhak Peterburg, Teva’s Chairman
of the Board of Directors, alongside IBM Chairman, President and CEO
Ginni Rometty. “Teva’s products reach 200 million people every day with
the world's largest medicine cabinet. We have the opportunity to lead
change in the pharmaceutical industry, innovating constantly to meet
consumers' evolving needs. By combining the skills of our partners, such
as Watson's cognitive computing capabilities, with Teva's pharmaceutical
expertise, we can create novel solutions and deliver real value to
people,” said Professor Peterburg.
“Working together, Teva and IBM create an unprecedented opportunity to
help doctors and patients worldwide achieve the promise of personalized
healthcare,” said Deborah DiSanzo, general manager for IBM Watson
Health. “IBM and Teva’s announcements today are notable for two reasons.
First, IBM’s work with Teva extends from the biopharmaceutical research
bench to an individual’s medicine cabinet -- underscoring the power of
Watson cognitive computing across life sciences and healthcare. Second,
this work includes the first integration of data from The Weather
Company with the Watson Health Cloud, a milestone and demonstrable of
how the definition of ‘health data’ is evolving.”
A Systematic Approach to Discovering New Uses for Existing Drugs
Thirty percent of regulatory approvals by the FDA in recent years have
been for new uses of previously approved drugs and vaccines1.
A repurposing approach to drug discovery and development is intended
to streamline the time- and cost-intensive process of bringing new
therapies to market, which can take the industry up to 20 years and cost
in excess of $2.5 billion. Medicines that have regulatory clearance
have been comprehensively tested, resulting in known safety and efficacy
profiles which may significantly reduce the drug development burden. New
uses, formulations and delivery innovations for previously approved
medicines have the potential to come to market quickly and efficiently
and address unmet medical needs.
Currently, the discovery of new therapeutic uses for existing medicines
is largely the result of serendipitous findings or isolated research.
The aim of the new collaboration between Teva and IBM Research is to
design, build, and deploy a systematic process for drug repurposing,
potentially becoming a blueprint for use across the industry. The
process will combine human insight with unique machine-learning
algorithms and real-world evidence accessed through the IBM Watson
Health Cloud. IBM Watson Health Cloud technology will be applied on a
massive scale with the aim of revealing previously hidden correlations
between a drug molecule and health conditions.
“Teva is a leader in innovation using existing molecules and IBM has
pioneered Watson cognitive computing – it is a natural partnership,”
said Michael Hayden, Teva's President of Global R&D and Chief Scientific
Officer. “This collaboration will bring together the science and the
technology to scale up ‘serendipity’ to an industrial level, opening up
new and exciting possibilities to create novel treatments for patients
based on existing medicines.”
“There is so much data out there that is currently underutilized, yet
has the potential to significantly inform drug repurposing. Eighty
percent of all health data is invisible to current technology systems
because it’s unstructured,” said Ajay Royyuru, IBM Fellow and Director
of Healthcare & Life Sciences for IBM Research. “Using cognitive
technologies to mine this data could reveal novel therapies for diseases
that desperately need tackling. By teaming up with Teva, our belief is
we will gain insights that can lead pharmaceutical companies to develop
new medicines that benefit patients worldwide.”
Empowering Doctors and Patients to Manage Chronic Diseases
Chronic diseases present a global burden, both on patients and on our
healthcare systems. Widespread chronic diseases, like asthma, which is
estimated to impact 400 million people around the world by 2025, remain
uncontrolled in many patients despite decades of availability to proven
medications. Many people living with asthma, for example, still
experience uncontrolled symptoms and frequent attacks – often due to
incorrect inhaler use or poor adherence to treatment. The need exists
for therapeutic solutions that enable a systematic, comprehensive
approach to help people take control of their health conditions.
To address the global impact of chronic diseases, Teva and IBM reveal,
for the first time, that they are working together on an initiative that
combines Teva’s therapeutic technologies with IBM Watson’s cognitive
computing. Together, the companies aim to enable patients, healthcare
providers, and payers to better understand and control chronic
conditions, and track treatments.
The chronic disease management collaboration will combine
cloud-connected drug delivery and app technology with more than six
billion data points processed by Watson to provide actionable insights,
including the first-ever integration of data from The Weather Company.
Using Watson’s cognitive processing capabilities and newly developed
algorithms these data may be used to calculate the prospective risk of
health events, such as an asthma attack, with Teva delivering that
information directly to caregivers and their patients via an app or
other software interface.
“Teva envisions a future where we can empower patients and their
families to better understand diseases, like asthma, and cope with
health challenges in a more systematic, data-driven manner, with the
ability to be proactive, rather than reactive,” said Rob Koremans, MD,
President and CEO of Teva Global Specialty Medicines. “In doing so, we
aim to cut treatment costs by providing patients, payers, healthcare
providers and caregivers with relatable data that can inform action and
insights into a patient’s total disease management plan.”
The IBM Watson Health Cloud is a health-data enabled
platform-as-a-service. It provides a foundation for cognitive offerings
and is designed to help healthcare organizations derive individualized
insights and obtain a more complete picture of the many factors that can
affect people’s health. Teva’s use of the IBM Watson Health Cloud will
comply with operational and security requirements for health data.
About Teva
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE and TASE: TEVA) is a leading
global pharmaceutical company that delivers high-quality,
patient-centric healthcare solutions used by millions of patients every
day. Headquartered in Israel, Teva is the world’s largest generic
medicines producer, leveraging its portfolio of more than 1,800
molecules to produce a wide range of generic products in nearly every
therapeutic area. In specialty medicines, Teva has a world-leading
position in innovative treatments for disorders of the central nervous
system, including pain, as well as a strong portfolio of respiratory
products. Teva integrates its generics and specialty capabilities in its
global research and development division to create new ways of
addressing unmet patient needs by combining drug development
capabilities with devices, services and technologies. Teva's net
revenues in 2015 amounted to $19.7 billion. For more information, visit www.tevapharm.com.
About IBM Watson: Pioneering a New Era of Computing
Watson represents a new era in computing called cognitive computing,
where systems understand the world the way humans do: through senses,
learning, and experience. Watson continuously learns from previous
interactions, gaining in value and knowledge over time. With Watson,
organizations are harnessing the power of cognitive computing to
transform industries, help professionals do their jobs better, and solve
important challenges.
Watson solutions are being built, used and deployed in more than 45
countries and across 20 different industries. Watson is open to the
world, allowing a growing community of developers, students,
entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts to easily tap into the most advanced
and diverse cognitive computing platform available today.
About IBM Research
For more than seven decades, IBM Research has defined the future of
information technology with more than 3,000 researchers in 12 labs
located across six continents. Scientists from IBM Research have
produced six Nobel Laureates, 10 U.S. National Medals of Technology,
five U.S. National Medals of Science, six Turing Awards, 19 inductees in
the National Academy of Sciences and 20 inductees into the U.S. National
Inventors Hall of Fame. For more information about IBM Research, visit www.ibm.com/research.
Teva's Safe Harbor Statement under the U. S. Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995:
This release contains forward-looking statements, which are based on
management’s current beliefs and expectations and involve a number of
known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause our future
results, performance or achievements to differ significantly from the
results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such
forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause or
contribute to such differences include risks relating to: our ability to
develop and commercialize additional pharmaceutical products;
competition for our specialty products, especially Copaxone® (which
faces competition from orally-administered alternatives and a generic
version); our ability to integrate Allergan plc’s worldwide generic
pharmaceuticals business (“Actavis Generics”) and to realize the
anticipated benefits of the acquisition (and the timing of realizing
such benefits); the fact that following the consummation of the Actavis
Generics acquisition, we are dependent to a much larger extent than
previously on our generic pharmaceutical business; potential
restrictions on our ability to engage in additional transactions or
incur additional indebtedness as a result of the substantial amount of
debt incurred to finance the Actavis Generics acquisition; the fact that
for a period of time following the Actavis Generics acquisition, we will
have significantly less cash on hand than previously, which could
adversely affect our ability to grow; the possibility of material fines,
penalties and other sanctions and other adverse consequences arising out
of our ongoing FCPA investigations and related matters; our ability to
achieve expected results from investments in our pipeline of specialty
and other products; our ability to identify and successfully bid for
suitable acquisition targets or licensing opportunities, or to
consummate and integrate acquisitions; the extent to which any
manufacturing or quality control problems damage our reputation for
quality production and require costly remediation; increased government
scrutiny in both the U.S. and Europe of our patent settlement
agreements; our exposure to currency fluctuations and restrictions as
well as credit risks; the effectiveness of our patents, confidentiality
agreements and other measures to protect the intellectual property
rights of our specialty medicines; the effects of reforms in healthcare
regulation and pharmaceutical pricing, reimbursement and coverage;
competition for our generic products, both from other pharmaceutical
companies and as a result of increased governmental pricing pressures;
governmental investigations into sales and marketing practices,
particularly for our specialty pharmaceutical products; adverse effects
of political or economic instability, major hostilities or acts of
terrorism on our significant worldwide operations; interruptions in our
supply chain or problems with internal or third-party information
technology systems that adversely affect our complex manufacturing
processes; significant disruptions of our information technology systems
or breaches of our data security; competition for our specialty
pharmaceutical businesses from companies with greater resources and
capabilities; the impact of continuing consolidation of our distributors
and customers; decreased opportunities to obtain U.S. market exclusivity
for significant new generic products; potential liability in the U.S.,
Europe and other markets for sales of generic products prior to a final
resolution of outstanding patent litigation; our potential exposure to
product liability claims that are not covered by insurance; any failure
to recruit or retain key personnel, or to attract additional executive
and managerial talent; any failures to comply with complex Medicare and
Medicaid reporting and payment obligations; significant impairment
charges relating to intangible assets, goodwill and property, plant and
equipment; the effects of increased leverage and our resulting reliance
on access to the capital markets; potentially significant increases in
tax liabilities; the effect on our overall effective tax rate of the
termination or expiration of governmental programs or tax benefits, or
of a change in our business; variations in patent laws that may
adversely affect our ability to manufacture our products in the most
efficient manner; environmental risks; and other factors that are
discussed in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December
31, 2015 and in our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission (the "SEC"). Forward-looking statements speak only as of the
date on which they are made and we assume no obligation to update or
revise any forward-looking statements or other information, whether as a
result of new information, future events or otherwise.
1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2013.11.005
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161026005557/en/
Source: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.
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