Cross-industry partnership looks to accelerate drug discovery through data sharing
BioCelerate, a subsidiary of TransCelerate BioPharma Inc., focuses on identifying opportunities to improve the efficiency of preclinical research.
The nonprofit previously partnered with Accenture – a global professional services company – as part of TransCelerate’s Placebo and Standard of Care (PSoC) initiative.
As such, Kevin Julian, senior managing director, Accenture Life Sciences North America and Accelerated R&D Services, told us the company is “convinced of the potential to drive additional industry value with BioCelerate through preclinical data sharing.”
"Access to previously unavailable data allows contributing companies to draw their own conclusions and improve drug discovery and development," BioCelerate's director of operations, Stephanie Frahm, further explained.
Through the new partnership, the professional services company will be providing project and change management services, expertise on data standards, and the technology platform, which is based on the Accenture Insights Platform.
“The Accenture Insights Platform provides a portfolio of advanced analytics capabilities, and an integrated design, build, run environment, to enable the development of industry and function-specific analytics solutions,” said Julian.
According to the companies, the platform will provide participating member companies with the ability to “assimilate, aggregate, and analyze” de-identified preclinical and clinical information.
To begin with, the platform will be used to enhance product safety as part of BioCelerate’s Toxicology & Background Control Data Sharing project.
"Companies participating in this collaboration will be able to make more informed, data-driven decisions on compound progression based on a deeper understanding of preclinical safety profiles of compounds under development," explained Frahm.
After it is launched, data from TransCelerate’s PSoC initiative will be migrated to the platform – further enabling preclinical and clinical data sharing across member companies.
“This is an exciting initiative in its own right,” said Julian, “cross-industry sharing of the safety of experimental compounds and biologics will reduce the time it takes for biopharma companies to discover innovative, safe products.”
Julian said they are in the process of finalizing the scope, design, and implementation of the data sharing platform.
“As we continue to look forward, we will jointly explore other opportunities with BioCelerate and TransCelerate to inform research through data sharing,” he added.
