Accenture’s data sharing platform climbs on Google Cloud
Under a multi-year collaboration agreement with Google, Intient will be accessible on the Google Cloud platform, in order to benefit from Google’s cloud and artificial intelligence capabilities.
Launched in May 2019, Intient is a technology platform enabling data sharing and management between scientists working on drug research and development, aiming to improve connectivity in the clinical research industry.
Google Cloud’s architecture, which supports open-source technology, is expected to enable Accenture to expand the capabilities of Intient by allowing partners, independent software vendors, and content providers to ‘rapidly’ develop and provide additional solutions that extend the value of the platform, Accenture stated.
Tariq Shaukat, president at Google Cloud, stated that, under this partnership, Google will work to “transform the life sciences industry with cloud technologies,” and added that the partners aim to accelerate developments of treatments “by leveraging powerful Google Cloud capabilities [...] to gain insights that correlate symptoms, events, and treatments in new and unexpected ways.”
The agreement occurred as an extension of an existing partnership between the two companies, which in 2018 led to the establishment of Accenture Google Cloud Business Group, to assist various industries to work on digitalization.
An industry-wide data sharing approach
Accenture’s platform was built in collaboration with Oracle, based on an open-software architecture that allows users to modify its functions at will, with a spokesperson for Accenture telling us, at the time, that the company received significant interest from clients on the project prior to its launch.
Shortly after its launch, Intient was adopted by Bayer, under an agreement which saw the latter company join the Life Sciences Cloud Coalition, a group of businesses built by Accenture and Oracle in order to facilitate clinical data sharing within the industry.
According to the company, the coalition aims to enable ‘pre-competitive’ collaboration between companies and support quick and cost-effective advancement of clinical development.
Members of the Life Sciences Cloud Coalition include Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Bayer, Merck, Novo Nordisk and GlaxoSmithKline. With Bayer’s addition, a spokesperson for the company had stated that “The future of R&D is bright when leading organizations come together to solve patients’ greatest needs.”
