AstraZeneca Partners with Oracle to Connect AI Capabilities to Healthcare Innovations

Editor’s Take: How AI and real-world data can help clinicians identify trial-eligible patients and accelerate evidence generation drives this partnership.

AstraZeneca is combining scientific and therapeutic expertise with Oracle’s data, cloud, AI, analytics, and clinical workflow capabilities in a collaboration. Initial areas the companies plan to investigate include oncology; cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic diseases; respiratory and immunology; and rare disease.

Oracle Bringing AI Capabilities

The new, non-binding agreement explores how AI and real-world data might help clinicians identify trial-eligible patients and accelerate evidence generation. By doing this, AstraZeneca and Oracle say, they will be able to bring relevant research insights into everyday care.

More specifically, the companies will explore selected use cases with potential to improve clinical trial efficiency and success. They will leverage modern applications and AI to help care teams identify eligible patients both earlier and easier. Ideally, this results in greater access to clinical trials for patients in need. It also addresses the problem of patient recruitment, one of clinical trials’ largest obstacles.

AstraZeneca Seeks Continuous Learning

Ultimately, AstraZeneca and Oracle want to establish a continuous learning model. From this, insights from clinical research, and also routine care, may inform future study design, safety monitoring, and patient care.

“This unique collaboration brings leaders in healthcare and AI together at a global scale,” AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said. “We can help clinicians identify patients sooner, optimize clinical trials, and generate evidence continuously across the lifecycle of a medicine.”

“Some of the most important opportunities for AI are in healthcare,” Oracle CEO Mike Sicilia said. “Better use of data can help turn scientific innovation into better outcomes for patients … [We can] accelerate research, connect more patients to clinical trials, and ultimately bring relevant insights into care faster.”

In the collaboration, AstraZeneca and Oracle will share governance, reusable technical components, and agreed-upon outcome measures to assess results. Through this, the two companies will determine whether successful approaches could extend across disease areas and geographies.