How pharmas can extract greater value from large-scale population studies

A key malaria treatment failed for the first time in the UK earlier this year. The drug combination was unable to cure four patients who had all visited Africa. This is an early sign that the parasite is evolving resistance, generating warnings of an urgent need to review the wider situation.

Drug-resistance is one of the increasing pressures in the drug discovery race.

Genomics-based approaches offers a promise in this area by creating a better understanding of the etiology of the disease, revealing new targets for therapies, and aiding the identification of new drug candidates.

To underpin this new approach to drug discovery and to influence better decision making, advanced data analytics are becoming embedded across the value chain by the pharma industry. However, the industry is still struggling with key issues of data management and integration.

The cost and complexity of organising genomics research data are challenges shared by larger global pharma and growing biotech alike. In this white paper, Genestack CEO Dr Misha Kapushesky dissects the big data challenge facing the pharma industry, identifes the five questions all discovery scientists are asking and proposes a strategy for turning a problem into an opportunity.