Innoplexus Assists in Biomarker Identification

What is your role at Novartis, and what was your involvement in the pilot program?

Eric Hughes: I am the Development Unit Head of Immunology, Hepatology, Dermatology and the China Head of Global Drug Development. I lead the discussions with Innoplexus in terms of defining the high-level strategy for the biomarker identification project.

Novartis has embraced the use of artificial intelligence. What do you look for in a technology provider, and how does Innoplexus fit into this profile?

Eric Hughes: At Novartis, leveraging data and digital is critical to our strategy. As an example, leveraging advances in machine learning and our internal clinical and omics data provides the potential of identifying subgroups of patients most likely to respond to a particular treatment. When we look for a technology provider, we are looking for a partner that is driving the advances in the field that will help us deliver transformational treatments for patients.

Why did Novartis decide to engage in the pilot program with Innoplexus?

Eric Hughes: What impressed me about Innoplexus is their technology, how they listened to what we wanted to achieve, and how quickly they executed the project.

What was your experience of the Innoplexus process and the biomarker identification program?

Eric Hughes: We had a positive experience with the Innoplexus team during this pilot program. The Innoplexus team was very fast to develop their strategy to address our request. During the execution of the project, the Innoplexus team scheduled regular check-ins with our team to share progress and ask clarifying questions in case any changes in strategy were needed to complete the project to our expectations.

What challenges do you face in biomarker identification?

Eric Hughes: Having sufficient data and the analytical capability is critical to being able to identify potential baseline biomarkers of response for the autoimmune diseases we are focused on at Novartis. In working with Innoplexus our expectation was to leverage their technology to pool all of the publicly available patient-level data that might help us in delivering on this objective.