- Aiming to optimize decision-making in the drug development process and individual medications for patients -
TOKYO, March 26, 2021 - Astellas Pharma Inc. (TSE: 4503, President and CEO: Kenji Yasukawa, Ph.D., “Astellas” ) has entered into two joint research agreements today to maximize the value of medications using AI and statistical methods. One agreement is with the Laboratory of Statistical Science, Faculty of Culture and Information Science, Doshisha University (President; Tomoko Ueki, “Doshisha University”), and the other is the Department of Medical Data Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Wakayama Medical University (President; Kazuhisa Miyashita, “Wakayama Medical University”).
Both of the endeavors aim to optimize decision-making in drug development and increase therapeutic effects by utilizing statistical models and simulation techniques leveraging big data.
The outline of the joint researches are as follows.
- Doshisha University and Astellas: Statistical modeling for decision making
In R&D, there are many critical decisions regarding target disease, clinical trial design, and other aspects. Therefore, we aim to optimize the timing of decision-making in drug development and hope to accelerate accurate decision-making using data-based statistical models and simulation techniques.
- Wakayama Medical University and Astellas: Statistical estimation of therapeutic effect
Estimating treatment effects based on a patient’s characteristics will enable the selection of appropriate medicines for each patient, eventually leading to the optimization of treatment effects and a reducuction in healthcare costs. We aim to optimize the treatment process for each patient by estimating treatment effects with statistical models using real-world data.
By mutually utilizing the simulation results and know-how obtained from the two joint researches, synergies such as enabling decision-making based on more accurate estimation are expected.
In recent years, with the innovation of analytical and information techniques, the amount of data and information related to medicine and life sciences increased significantly and created new opportunities to add value. Astellas will collaborate to maximize the value of pharmaceuticals by integrating the two approaches.
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