For at least the next three years, the UK pharma giant will use BioWisdom's Safety Intelligence Program (SIP) to trawl through the mass of publicly available data on drug safety, collate it all together and analyse it. AstraZeneca (AZ) did not disclose how much the deal will cost them.

By identifying the cause and characteristics of known toxicities, it may be possible to predict potential safety issues with new drugs, enabling more informed decisions on whether to proceed with development. At a time when the cost of developing drugs continues to rise to over a billion dollars, the earlier such decisions can be taken, the better.

According to BioWisdom, the SIP can also help a company evaluate the best animal model for a specific toxicity in preclinical testing, discover novel safety biomarkers, identify alternate indications for drugs and, in the end, design better clinical trials in order to maximise a compound's chance of making it to market.

"[This] an important step in enhancing our ability to predict and understand safety related issues early in the Discovery process. Success in the Program is anticipated to result ultimately in the delivery of better innovative medicines to meet patient needs," said Dr Gerry Oliver, head of discovery support at AZ.

As well as becoming the first partner on the programme, AZ will also join BioWisdom's SIP advisory group, which influences the development and implementation of the software.

The group is headed up by Dr Jack Reynolds, who recently retired from Pfizer where he was senior vice president of research and development and worldwide head of safety sciences and comparative medicine.

"This program provides a critical step towards improving our understanding of many of the major recurring and potentially serious drug-induced adverse events," he said.

AZ has been working with BioWisdom for the past three years and this deal cements their commitment to a crucial area of drug development, but one that is notoriously hard to predict.