Novartis announce digital collaboration with HPE

Swiss pharma company, Novartis, has announced a collaboration with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), to accelerate its use of data and digital technologies.

The collaboration will focus on three global health enablers: identifying and integrating complex data sources related to health; advancing the application of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and geo-spatial analytics to these data; and expanding access to technology in remote and underserved locations.

Novartis, through its collaboration with HPE, is aiming to identify and integrate diverse data sources to enable real-time disease insights to inform ‘targeted response strategies’.

Data-related insights are essential to improve access to healthcare and medicines, especially in low-resource settings, because they enable decision makers to target interventions to achieve the greatest impact. However, data is often unavailable, outdated, incomplete or not in digital form.

Initially, the partnership will aim to develop a disease surveillance solution for dengue fever, first focusing on India.

The first use case for the partnership will seek to develop a disease surveillance solution for dengue fever, initially focusing on India. More than 3.9 billion people in over 129 countries are at risk of contracting dengue fever, with an estimated 400 million cases and 40,000 deaths each year. The World Health Organization has identified dengue fever as one of the top ten global health threats.

The surveillance solution will help authorities to deploy response strategies targeting at-risk populations, with the resulting real-world evidence also set to complement the drug-discovery efforts of the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases.

Lutz Hegemann, group head of corporate affairs and global health at Novartis, said: “Novartis is committed to applying its expertise and full organisational capability to address major, unresolved global health challenges. With Hewlett Packard Enterprise, we will seek to leverage data, digital and technology capabilities to maximise this impact.”

Kat Jenkins