Using the Power of Technology and Innovative Science to Advance Patient Care

We accelerate patient care by applying our experience, creative thinking and the latest innovations in health care to our drug development process.

There have been great strides made recently in treating the most difficult and debilitating health conditions people face. Yet, there is still much work to be done if we are going to find truly effective therapies for these conditions. At Pfizer, we work to make our drug development process more efficient by collaborating with unique partners and exploring new pathways that harness technology and emerging science. At the core of this work is the belief that collaboration – across organizations, industries and even therapeutic areas – is essential to driving measurable progress and revolutionizing care.

Leading a Transformative Approach to Precision Medicine

Working with IBM Health Watson fuels our immuno-oncology research

One of the major recent advances in the battle against cancer has been immuno-oncology, which uses the body’s immune system to fight the disease. The future of immuno-oncology may lie in combining therapies and tailoring them to unique tumor characteristics. Yet, the number of potential therapy combinations is almost impossible to quantify, let alone test. Therefore, one of the great challenges in immuno-oncology is to find ways to narrow the field of focus so we can more efficiently identify effective combinations.

To accelerate our work in this space, Pfizer is working with IBM Health Watson.

“At Pfizer, we are entering a new frontier in data innovation in which we are investing in a range of new technologies and digital solutions to help us dynamically mine both internal and external data sources to find new connections in science, as well as help us better understand how diseases progress and how they could potentially be treated. Applying the power of cognitive computing to an area that is a core part of our DNA – discovering new medicines – is helping Pfizer to learn how we can most efficiently discover those immuno-oncology therapies that have the best chance of successful outcomes for patients.”

Laurie Olson
Executive Vice President, Strategy, Portfolio and Commercial Operations, Pfizer

Learn more about our oncology portfolio.

IBM and Pfizer to Accelerate Immuno-oncology Research with Watson for Drug Discovery

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“Connecting” with Parkinson’s Disease Patients to Improve Therapies

Parkinson's disease affects seven to 10 million people across the globe

At Pfizer, we believe advancing patient outcomes also includes improving how and when treatments are delivered. Understanding how a patient copes with their disease every day can potentially shed light on how care providers might enhance that patient’s treatment, leading to tangible impacts on their health.

This is particularly true for a neurological disease like Parkinson’s disease, which requires ongoing adjustments to treatment depending on the progression of the disease and the patient’s response. Currently, monitoring of a Parkinson’s patient’s symptoms is limited to what a doctor is able to personally observe in a clinic or the information a patient or caregiver records in a diary.

To address this gap, in 2016, Pfizer and IBM announced a first-of-its-kind research collaboration to employ leading-edge remote monitoring tools aimed at sparking an entirely new – and more complete – approach to how clinicians deliver care to patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

We have an opportunity to potentially redefine how we think about patient outcomes and 24/7 monitoring, by combining Pfizer’s scientific, medical and regulatory expertise with IBM’s ability to analyze and interpret complex data in innovative ways. The key to our success will be to deliver a reliable, scalable system of measurement and analysis that would help inform our clinical programs across important areas of unmet medical need, potentially helping us to get better therapies to patients, faster.
Mikael Dolsten, M.D., Ph.D.
President of Pfizer Worldwide Research and Development

Through a state-of-the-art system of sensors, mobile devices and computer analysis, we are looking to give real-time, around-the-clock symptom information to clinicians and researchers. This will give a complete view of a patient’s well-being by measuring a variety of health indicators, such as how they move, think, reason and sleep, as well as provide insight into daily activities such as grooming, dressing and eating.

The goal of this innovative approach is to better understand a patient’s disease progression and their response to medication. In turn, this has the potential to help improve treatment decisions as well as clinical trial designs, while also speeding the development of new therapeutic options for patients and potentially helping them arrive at disease management sooner.

Blazing the Trail in Gene Therapy

Gene therapy has the potential to lead to transformative breakthroughs for patients suffering from devastating rare diseases

Not long ago, the idea of treating a disease at its genetic source seemed like science fiction. Today, gene therapy is a growing area of medical research, focused on developing specialized treatments that address the root of diseases caused by genetic mutations.

At Pfizer, we recognized the opportunity for gene therapy to have a potentially enormous impact on patients and we are committed to building a strong capability in this field. We have begun doing this through strategic partnerships, deepening our existing in-house knowledge of disease biology and expanding upon our strong expertise in complex biologic medicine manufacturing and analytics capabilities.

To accelerate our impact in this important field, in 2016, we acquired Bamboo Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on developing gene therapies for the potential treatment of patients with certain rare neuromuscular conditions and rare diseases affecting the central nervous system. Bamboo’s fully staffed and operational clinical manufacturing facility gives us significant and immediate access to their experience and the capacity to produce key gene therapy candidates for clinical evaluation.

The addition of Bamboo’s capabilities to our own furthers our ability to develop and bring to market potentially life-changing treatments for patients with rare diseases that have few available treatment options.