Teva Partners with IBM Watson to Advance Drug Repurposing and Chronic Disease Management

Recently, global pharmaceutical company Teva and IBM launched a three-year research collaboration, which will be integrated with the Watson Health Cloud in the future. Building on their existing alliance, this project will focus on two key areas of healthcare: developing systematic approaches to identify new uses for existing drugs, and improving the management of chronic diseases.

Machine Learning-Based IBMWatsonHealth Cloud Platform is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) based on user health data, designed to help healthcare institutions gain patient-specific insights and comprehensively understand the various factors affecting human health.

This collaboration in chronic disease management stems from the Foundation Life Sciences Partner Alliance, previously established through the partnership between Teva and IBM Watson Health Cloud. By leveraging Teva’s therapeutic technologies and Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities, the companies are working to help physicians, patients, and payers better manage chronic conditions such as asthma and more effectively track long-term treatment outcomes.

Among the applications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in recent years, 30% have been for new indications of already-approved drugs and vaccines. Drug discovery and development through repurposing can address the challenges of prolonged timelines and high costs associated with bringing new therapies to market. Previously, this process could take up to 20 years and cost more than $2.5 billion.

In a joint statement, Teva and IBM announced that their new research collaboration aims to design, build, and implement an industry-wide systematic process for drug repurposing. This process integrates human insights, proprietary machine-learning algorithms, and real-world evidence evaluated through the IBM Watson Health Cloud. The statement noted that IBM Watson Health Cloud technologies would be deployed “at scale” to uncover previously unknown relationships between drug molecules and health conditions.

This is not Teva’s first foray into chronic disease management. Last year, the company acquired Gecko Health Innovations, a smart inhaler manufacturer that produces specialized sensor devices, data analytics platforms, and user-friendly interfaces to help patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) manage their conditions. It is highly likely that the collaboration with IBM will leverage data from these inhaler sensors as metadata.

“Teva envisions a future in which we can help patients and their families better understand diseases such as asthma, and address health challenges in a more systematic, data-driven, and proactive manner, rather than relying on passive disease treatment capabilities,” said Rob Koremans, CEO of Teva’s Global Specialty Medicines business, in a statement. “Our goal is to reduce treatment costs and provide actionable insights for comprehensive patient disease management plans by delivering relevant data to patients, payers, healthcare providers, and caregivers.”

The collaboration with IBM will combine drug delivery and application technologies via the cloud with over 6 billion data points processed by Watson, while integrating data from relevant companies to provide actionable insights and support for patients and physicians. Leveraging this data, along with Watson’s powerful cognitive processing and algorithmic capabilities, the partnership aims to predict disease risks, such as asthma attacks. Teva will deliver this information directly to patients and their caregivers through applications or other devices.

In the realm of drug repurposing, Teva and IBM aim to streamline the time-consuming process of bringing new therapeutic indications for existing drugs to market, while also reducing prohibitive costs. Previously, discovering new uses for drugs not only took decades and cost billions of dollars but was also largely confined to rare diseases and fragmented research efforts. The partnership between Teva and IBM will leverage the IBM Watson Health Cloud at scale, combining human insights, machine learning, and real-world evidence.

Michael Michael, President of Global R&D and Chief Scientific Officer at Teva, stated: “This collaboration will bring together science and technology to transform the serendipity inherent in drug discovery into a precisely predictable, industrialized process, creating exciting new possibilities and developing novel therapies for patients with existing medical conditions.”