Image Analysis Group Announces Collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company and Robarts Clinical Trials, Inc. to Accelerate Development of Novel Breakthrough Therapies for Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
London, UK, May 8th, 2019 – IAG, Image Analysis Group , a strategic imaging partner for bio-pharma companies, announced they have entered into an collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company and Robarts Clinical Trials to validate how advanced imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) driven methodologies can accelerate the clinical development of novel breakthrough therapies and enable parties to bring novel effective treatments to patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
The companies will assess MRI data from patients with Crohn’s Disease, a form of IBD, and then develop targeted strategies for the development of efficient treatments using state-of-the-art and innovative methodologies.
IAG will bring scientific and clinical imaging expertise in the field of inflammatory diseases, which will be coupled with IAG’s proprietary methodologies for identifying more specific and sensitive imaging biomarkers for inflammatory driven diseases.
Robarts Clinical Research, a global clinical research organization focused on IBD, will provide clinical expertise, patient-focused insights, and data.
Lilly, a research-based company that develops, manufactures, markets, and sells pharmaceutical products, will provide imaging and clinical expertise specifically focused at bringing innovation to the development of new therapies.
“We believe that use of the right imaging and quantitative methodologies has the potential to accelerate early drug development by providing greater precision than conventional assessments, which heavily rely on subjective visual scoring of inflammation in images,” said Olga Kubassova, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, IAG. “Smart ways of using data will enable the life sciences industry to increase the speed and quality of innovation, while saving costs.”
The future of successful clinical R&D of novel therapeutic agents is dependent on the efficient use of modern technologies and data-centric development approaches. While artificial intelligence is already optimizing drug development in many therapeutic areas, quantitative imaging-driven analytics of treatment responses as well as radiographic patient phenotyping are considered future game changers for pharmaceutical R&D. This collaboration will help advance understanding in these areas.
“We are excited to bring together novel methodologies and years of scientific expertise to generate meaningful and actionable data,” said Ajay Nirula, M.D., PhD, vice president, Immunology, Lilly. “Our hope is this collaboration will produce new insights and tools that will ultimately benefit people living with IBD.”
“As more of such data and innovation become available to the community of physicians and scientists, the more chances we have to make fast objective decisions and develop personalised treatments for individuals with luminal and fistulizing CD,”Brian Feagan, CSO of Robarts Clinical Trials.
About IAG
IAG is a strategic partner to bio-pharmaceutical companies developing new treatments to improve patients’ lives. Our dynamic Strategy, Trial Solutions and Bio-Partnering divisions work closely to meet critical needs of biotechnology companies: funding, clinical development and monetization of their assets. We fuse decades of therapeutic insights, risk-sharing business model and agile culture to accelerate novel drug development. IAG broadly leverages its core imaging expertise, proprietary technology platform DYNAMIKA and capabilities to support an objective early go no/ go decision and drive excellence for tomorrow’s innovative therapeutic agents with speed. ia-grp.com
About Robarts Clinical Trials
Robarts Clinical Trials Inc. (RCTI) is a global research organization providing clinical trial and central image management solutions (CIMS) to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Its unique model combines the efforts of leading internationally recognized academic researchers with operational experts to offer integrated solutions to its pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners. Over the past 20 years, RCTI has become recognized as an expert in clinical trial design, execution, outcome development, precision medicine and image management for drug development in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Robarts Clinical Trials Inc. provides services in over 55 countries worldwide, collaborates with leading academic research institutions across the globe and partners with many of the leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations to bring new and improved treatment options to patients. www.robartsclinicaltrials.com