What You Should Know:
– Global biopharma company UCB and Microsoft announced today a new, multi-year strategic collaboration to advance UCB’s digital transformation, change the way care is delivered, and accelerate better outcomes for people living with severe diseases.
– The partnership builds on the companies’ joint work as part of the COVID Moonshot project which sought to create an orally bioavailable anti-viral for COVID-19. During the project, UCB completed six months’ worth of computational screening and compound design in just three days.
– In this expanded collaboration, Microsoft applied scientists will work alongside UCB scientists and data specialists to extend this model and identify other areas to leverage data, computing power, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and science to accelerate the development of life changing therapies and individualized medicines for people living with severe diseases in immunology and neurology.
UCB/Microsoft Strategic Objectives
UCB and Microsoft will explore how to combine diverse research data sets with four strategic objectives in mind, allowing UCB to:
– Improve a patient’s overall journey
– Increase the impact of a treatment through a deeper understanding of the biological causes of the disease
– Systematically provide better research data-driven insights to enable the faster discovery of therapeutic molecules
– Accelerate clinical development timelines
“Together, UCB and Microsoft are taking on some of healthcare’s greatest challenges to find connected, innovative ways to create better experiences, insights, and more personal and more effective care. With the deep knowledge that UCB offers in drug discovery and the knowledge of human biology, together with Microsoft’s unmatched expertise in computer science and AI, we have a unique opportunity to reinvent the way new medicines are created.” says Jean-Philippe Courtois, EVP and President, Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing & Operations.
