LAS VEGAS, Oct. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE:IBM)
and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., (NYSE and TASE: TEVA)
today announced 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.
The announcements were made from 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, IBMs 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
revealed, 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.
IBM Contacts:
Kristi Bond
IBM Media Relations - IBM Watson Health
kristi.bond@us.ibm.com
Phone: 802-345-8313
Christine Vu
IBM Media Relations - IBM Research
vuch@us.ibm.com
Phone: 914-945-2755
Teva Contacts:
Iris Beck Codner
Israel
Phone: 972 (3) 926-7687
Denise Bradley
United States
Phone: (215) 591-8974
Nancy Leone
United States
Phone: (215) 284-0213
1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2013.11.005
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