Accelerating Drug Development Time-to-Market

In collaboration with a global pharmaceutical company, ADC helped develop a data and AI analytics platform driven by a commitment to reshape the landscape of healthcare data science. The overarching objective of this initiative was to not only accelerate time-to-market of new medicines but also to significantly boost productivity throughout our client’s organisation, underscoring the platform’s pivotal role in advancing healthcare innovation. Keep reading to explore the development and objectives of the platform and its implications for healthcare advancement. 

The project aimed to tackle the challenges associated with analysing complex medical research or drug development datasets, particularly when workflows and data analysis lack efficiency. Our client recognised the strategic importance of its data assets in novel modalities and prioritised bringing all external clinical trial data in-house. This consolidation effort intended to streamline processes, enabling better security and data quality controls and enhanced utilisation of crucial information to drive innovation and improve patient outcomes. 

The project was launched to revolutionise the handling and analysis of non-standard data modalities, starting with medical images and omics data. This initiative planned to create a standardised platform and tools to streamline data pipelines and expedite data availability for primary business use.  

By implementing the analytics platform, end users reduce the time spent on extensive IT configuration and environment setup. Instead, they have access to a standardised technology stack that ensures uniformity and efficiency in their data analytics processes, allowing them to focus more on deriving valuable insights and driving innovation. 

Standardisation was achieved by identifying best practices and implementing a suite of both open-source and customised tools, including a cloud based machine learning operations platform, cloud based data platforms for storing and retrieving data of the novel modalities, an OHIF open-source viewer for imaging data and Nextflow for managing the complex computational pipelines needed for the end users’ core tasks.  

To ensure the platform’s long-term usability, the platform team prioritised developing robust documentation and clear standard operating procedures (SOPs). ADC participated as part of the agile team responsible for the platform’s development, implementing agile best practices, creating end-user documentation, and leading the ingestion of external data from contract research organisations (CROs). 

Collaboration with external partners (CROs) was integral to the success of the project. By actively engaging with external clinical data providers, we enhanced accessibility to external clinical data, thereby enriching the platform’s analytical capabilities and expanding the data available to end users.  

This collaboration entailed maintaining open communication channels with external partners, ensuring a clear understanding of their needs, and aligning project objectives accordingly. We carefully quality-assured and formatted the received data to meet clinical use standards and ensure seamless integration into the platform, maintaining consistency and compatibility with the platform’s tools and workflows. 

Are you interested in discovering how ADC can assist your life science organisation in optimising its drug development process? Our team has extensive experience in implementing solutions that create real impact. To learn more, please contact Andreas Kjær.