In the latest pharma/tech partnership, Teva and Intel are developing a wearable platform to track the progression of Huntington’s disease. There is no cure for the disease, which causes a breakdown of nerve cells in the brain, resulting in a decline in motor control, cognition and mental stability.
The technology can be used to assess the effectiveness of drugs that treat symptoms, and in developing new drugs. (Teva will use it in a mid-stage study.)
Wearable sensors (in this case a watch, but the concept could progress to patches) continuously measure patient functioning. Data is wirelessly transmitted to the cloud, and algorithms score motor symptom severity.
In recent months, ApplySci has described similar pharma/device/big data/machine learning alliances, including:
- Sanofi and Verily’s Onduo platiform to treat diabetes
- GlaxoSmithKline and Verily targeting electrical signals in the body
- A Verily and Novartis smart contact lense glucose monitor
- A Biogen /Alphabet MS study
ApplySci looks forward to the use of brain-monitoring wearables to enable users to see and address neurodegenerative changes before symptoms appear.
ApplySci’s 6th Wearable Tech + Digital Health + NeuroTech Silicon Valley – February 7-8 2017 @ Stanford | Featuring: Vinod Khosla – Tom Insel – Zhenan Bao – Phillip Alvelda – Nathan Intrator – John Rogers – Mary Lou Jepsen – Vivek Wadhwa – Miguel Nicolelis – Roozbeh Ghaffari – Unity Stoakes – Mounir Zok