UK communications services and solutions supplier BT is launching a cloud service to allow collaboration within the life sciences industry
UK-based BT, a leading global provider of communications services and solutions, has launched BT for Life Sciences R&D, a cloud service designed to enable collaboration within the life sciences industry for increased r&d productivity while allowing customers to comply with the industry’s stringent security, regulatory and compliance requirements.
BT for Life Sciences R&D is being developed to become a secure and segregated platform for scientists in pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device and diagnostics companies as well as in academia and government. It will allow them to construct and orchestrate in silico workflows and data pipelines to identify new pharmaceutical targets and drug candidates.
The group will be able to upload documents securely, share results and communicate via instant messaging, voice, video or chat to analyse results in an environment that segments data and uses qualified hardware components and workflows specific to the pharma industry. The platform is supported by the BT Assure portfolio of security services, allowing BT to assist customers in designing data encryption, anonymisation, risk management and resilience to meet their quality and regulatory requirements for the cloud environment.
‘The pharmaceutical industry is facing an extremely challenging environment where patent protected revenues are at risk and r&d productivity is declining, resulting in lower revenues and continued rise in the cost of bringing new drugs to market,’ said Bas Burger, president of Global Commerce for BT Global Services. ‘Now companies can potentially reduce research costs and accelerate time to market by collaborating with third parties in a secure and compliant environment, and bring innovative solutions to market faster through computer simulation and modelling.’
At the initial stage of rollout, the new cloud platform for life sciences builds on BT’s On Demand Compute service, with an innovative compliance ‘wrap’ meeting GxP requirements. Using the in silico workbench functionality of BT for Life Sciences R&D, scientists have easy access to the applications and information they need to make predictive simulations. Embedded cloud orchestration tools significantly simplify IT management and resourcing requirements.
Innovative approaches to target identification and validation and on lead optimisation of new drug candidates
BT Global Services will be working with Boston-based Berg Pharma to accelerate the process of drug discovery and development. The joint effort will focus on the use of innovative approaches to target identification and validation and on lead optimisation of novel drug candidates. It will support the use of cloud-based high throughput molecular profiling techniques to select patients for clinical trials.
Berg Pharma will use BT for Life Sciences R&D as the de facto standard for running its Interrogative Biology platform. It will enable Berg Pharma to maximise its late-stage clinical trial activity and continue r&d of early-stage technologies in CNS and metabolic diseases. In addition, Berg Pharma will be able to offer its Interrogative Biology platform from BT’s cloud service in a secure manner to produce better quality information. This will provide results that can lead to faster IND filings and to safer and more effective options for clinical trial participants.
BT for Life Sciences R&D platform
‘Berg Pharma’s novel approaches to drug discovery and development will integrate well with BT’s new cloud services offering. This approach will enable us to gain insight into underlying disease mechanisms and pathophysiology, provide a template for expedient ‘proof of principle’ IND-enabling testing and allow for higher clinical trial success based on deeper disease understanding,’ said Niven Narain, president and cto for Berg Pharma. ‘Medicine of the future must be data-driven to address the multifactorial nature of disease onset and allow for astute clinical and economic modelling. Big data is important but actionable data is invaluable.’
