Drug Development with Blockchain and AI: IP Protection, Collaborative Research, and Secured Patient Data
Martin Glick at Aves Lair
The connections between blockchain investments and the demand of the Pharmaceutical companies align very well. Deloitte notes “The market for blockchain startup funding has reached epic proportions as over $1.6B in the capital was raised in 2017 through initial coin offerings, with numerous health care startups successfully acquiring funds.” Early-stage complications in regard to drug testing, the sharing of test data, and finding potential candidates for testing allow for lots of room for expansion. In the R&D world, there are some great use cases available with the website Proof Of Existence, and the OWKIN platform. However, regarding patient data and the sourcing of patients, these are areas the industry has yet to take full advantage of blockchain technology. DDW Online notes: “A survey of 120 senior pharmaceutical and life science leaders conducted in June 2017” by The Pistoia Alliance. This survey concluded that “interest in blockchain is high with a significant 83% expecting blockchain to be adopted in under five years.”When polled on the single most significant hurdle or perceived limitation that blockchain must overcome before it is adopted widely in healthcare, “the leaders identified the biggest hurdle as regulatory issues (45%), followed by concerns over data privacy (26%).”
Securing drug IP with blockchain
The production of patents is a delicate process that involves being the first one to take a lead in R&D. File time-stamping is available through websites like Proof Of Existence which allows documents to be certified through verification by paying in bitcoin. This confirms that an unalterable file or document is stored in the hash of the file on the blockchain. This website is available for everyone to see and confirm that their research is saved on a database publicly available and can point to early or first-hand advantage expansions in research. Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs) are very common in this industry but these are not on blockchain networks or immutable which suggests there is room for bad actors. Using a website like Proof Of Existence would aid in confirming a stake in the ground capability.
Collaborative drug discovery with AI
A research project called “MELLODDY” (Machine Learning Ledger Orchestration for Drug Discovery), which involves ten large pharma companies including AstraZeneca, Bayer, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, and Novartis Novartis allows collective training of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms using data from pharmaceutical competitors, without exposing their internal research and compromising their IP.
This collaborative network is using the OWKIN Platform. A central server allows each pharma company to share a common model to be used collectively. Everyone involved trains models locally on their own data and then shares only the updated model (without revealing the dataset) into a consolidated server. ML is essential to the fast-paced world of drug development, but it only works properly if the data sets are large. With this program companies will be able to reap the benefit of more data, as much as they are an equal contributor to their own research.
Protect patient data with blockchain
No clear winner yet: speeding up patient recruitment
Clinical trial recruitment is a common challenge, especially for special patient populations that have rare diseases or novel vaccines. Recruitment can take up at least one-third of the total clinical trial duration. In addition, approximately 20% of sites recruit no patients and rely on remote support. The evolution of traditional site-based trials to remote or virtual trials can greatly benefit from the blockchain for patient eligibility, consent, distribution of new drugs, and remote assessments to meet regulatory requirements. This model would enable the prospective collection of data points from potential patients even before a clinical trial starts. Adding valuable time to the process. Saddled with a $100 million price tag per trial, clinical research continues to be one of the most expensive aspects of the modern healthcare landscape. Search and social media posts are the main ways companies get volunteers for trials. This needs to change, however, because it is time-consuming. Industry professionals claim that as much as 30% of the drug development timeline gets taken up by clinical research.
Blockchain-based patient-data platform
HealthBank is a Swiss company that uses blockchain technology to decentralize without risking scalability and secure user data for clinical trials regarding their personal data. Users can share data with doctors, care teams, and loved ones. If a researcher is willing to pay users to have access to their data, users can opt-in. They are also reachable to be sent drugs in the case of remote clinical trials. HealthBank is currently reaching out to institutional partners from the healthcare ecosystem to get them involved. I believe the company is in the early stages but growing, and could prove a leader in the way that companies recruit volunteers for their research. Alternatively, it allows companies to bypass the time-consuming recruitment stage by having a pool of willing candidates ready to go.
