Cloud platform launched to speed up drug research

Global intellectual property analytics company, PatSnap, has launched a cloud based platform, Chemical, which combines innovation data with scientific information into a single searchable interface.

The Software-as-a-Services (SaaS) platform enables users to validate chemical development projects by analysing big data through machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Its database links over 114 million chemical structures, clinical trial information, regulatory details, toxicity data, over 121 million patents and a number of other sources.

“The main challenges in R&D are that companies use resources in a way that’s not productive, for example hiring people to do studies and accumulate lots of data, but at the end of the day, they do not assimilate all that information into a coherent strategy. Successful commercialisation of a drug is expensive and fraught with high risk,” said Ali Hussein, UK product leader at PatSnap. “Estimated costs can rise to as much as $2.6 billion, while 14 drug candidates will fail clinical trials for every one that makes it to market. Current strategies have not been able to bring down the costs of research and development, and the pressure to adopt value-based and outcome-based pricing models has rapidly intensified.

“It’s a well-established principle that big data holds the potential to address these problems, but until now it has been difficult to extract this information from the worlds of chemistry and innovation intelligence in either a cost-effective or resource-efficient way. Particularly challenging is the accurate integration of multiple relevant data sets and the skill set required to analyse and interpret results.”