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Interview


“Agreeing standards for communications protocols, data use and physical integration is the next important step”


Pistoia Alliance runs are also a considerable benefit. Members collaborate as equals on projects that aim to generate significant value for the worldwide life sciences community. From a personal point of view, it is of course also very beneficial to a member’s profile to be part of a successful project that comes to fruition. Many of the Pistoia Alliance’s projects began at a single company, and were further developed under the framework as a result of collaborative efforts. One example is HELM


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hundred dollars. Undoubtedly, we’re about to witness an explosion of genomic data and an increasing awareness among the general public of what interpreting this data could mean. Together, these barriers


are pushing the world of life sciences to a tipping point – collaborate, or fail. The industry must share the costs of building solutions that will have maximum benefit to both their company and the industry as a whole. What this requires is an industry-wide effort to improve cross-domain collaboration, aggregation, access and data dissemination. The potential of this ‘world of data’ in life sciences is unmatched. Think of some of the biggest targets that the industry is charged with; curing cancer, slowing the advance of Alzheimer’s, creating prosthetics that can ‘think’, reversing blindness, personalising drugs. Two things are crucial in all of these fights – data, and collaboration – the Pistoia Alliance provides a forum in which this can happen.


What are the benefits of being a member of the Pistoia Alliance?


Being in the Pistoia Alliance offers companies a way to amplify their R&D budget by pooling resources with like-minded individuals. It is a group where members can share best practice and expertise, and collaborate with peers towards a shared goal. As we have members from global companies with thousands of employees, to a five-person startup, we are able to bring together a variety of expertise and experience. One of the most significant benefits is that members can use the Pistoia Alliance’s legal framework to ratify and guide their collaborative efforts. The framework is proven and acts as a legal ‘safety net’, so that open innovation can take place between all companies. This ensures that members benefit from having access to all of the different links in the R&D chain – from chemistry, to biology, to ‘omics, to IT. The projects that the


30 Research Information December 2016/January 2017


(Hierarchical Editing Language for Macromolecules); this was initiated by Pfizer when it realised there was no commercial solution available to researchers that allows them to handle complex macromolecules computationally. Pfizer approached the Pistoia Alliance, where a survey found the majority of member organisations had the same issue. A collaborative project ensued, resulting in the creation of an open-source standard for biomolecular language. HELM has now been widely adopted by life sciences companies, scientific publishers and regulatory agencies, including the FDA. HELM is an excellent example of what collaboration can achieve.


What trends do you see most impacting the life sciences industry in the future? The face of R&D is changing dramatically, new data-types are growing in volume all the time and will continue to do so. This could include everything from wearable devices, to ingestible or implantable chips.


And we are now also seeing the emergence of innovations such as viral robots and DNA nanomachines. Robotics and Artificial Intelligence are also set to have a big impact, with industrial-scale robots present in many modern labs that can act as a fully automated ‘lab-in-a-box’. Though an increasing level of automation and technology can significantly reduce the cost of R&D and lower barriers to access, agreeing standards for communications protocols, data use and physical integration is the next important step. The life sciences industry must work together to support the creation of investment, regulatory and academic systems to minimise wasted resources and accelerate progress.


One other trend is the


tendency towards large-scale research projects – often instigated by governments or private individuals – with mammoth aims. Recent example include Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, and the Zuckerbergs’ big philanthropic plan ‘to cure, prevent and manage all disease in the next 10 years’. While the aims are laudable, investing money will be only half the battle. These programmes are ambitious and patient-focused, and will undoubtedly generate overwhelming quantities of data. It will therefore be important – if these projects are to deliver – to get all of the relevant stakeholders in the same room and at the same time.


Interview by Tim Gillett


@researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info


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