Pfizer Inc. www.pfizer.com and IBM www.ibm.com are collaborating to develop innovative remote monitoring solutions to help transform how clinicians deliver care to patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The companies will work together on sensors, mobile devices, and machine learning to provide real-time around-the-clock disease symptom information to clinicians and researchers.
The collaborative effort by both companies will help to create a holistic view of a patient’s well-being by seeking to accurately measure a variety of health indicators, including motor function, dyskinesia, cognition, sleep, and daily activities from this data.
The ultimate goal is to obtain a better understanding of a patient’s disease progression and medication response to help inform treatment decisions, provide effective clinical trial design, and speed up the development of new therapeutic options.
According to Mikael Dolsten, MD PhD, President of Pfizer Worldwide Research and Development, “The key to our success will be to deliver a reliable scalable system of measurement and analysis that would help inform our clinical programs across important areas of unmet medical needs. This potentially will accelerate the drug development and regulatory approval processes and be able to get better therapies to patients faster.”
This will help clinicians understand the effect of a patient’s medication as the disease progresses to help optimize the patient’s treatment regimen as needed. Data generated through the system could also arm researchers with the insights and real-world evidence needed to help accelerate potential new and better therapies.
However, with the proliferation of digital health information, one area that remains elusive is the collection of real-time physiological data to support disease management,” said Arvind Krishna, Senior VP and Director for IBM Research.
He adds, “IBM is testing ways to create a system that passively collects data with little or no burden on the patient. This will provide doctors and researchers with objective real-time insights that could fundamentally change the way patients are monitored and treated.” The two companies think that the system will move into initial clinical testing quickly.
Currently, Pfizer and IBM are planning to convene an external advisory board of patient groups, advocacy organizations, clinicians, and neuroscientists to guide the use of technology, medical devices, data management, and research protocols