Along the lines of Singapore’s Smart Nation Initiative AstraZeneca has entered into strategic partnerships with three organisations to step up use of AI, big data and precision medicine to target chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Using artificial intelligence (AI), big data and genomics to step up the development of life-changing biomedical science, the three organisations are AI start-up eko.ai, the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre (AMC) and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).
Building on government initiatives including the National AI Strategy and the Healthcare Industry Transformation Map, the partnership aims to speed up the deployment of digital healthcare technology, accelerate scientific talent and skills development, and advance Singapore’s position as a global hub for cutting-edge health science innovation.
Goals of partnership
The key objective of these collaborations is to help Singaporeans enjoy good health and quality healthcare, by using technology to identify risk factors for disease prevention, enable earlier diagnosis, and to improve the treatment and management of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
With eko.ai, AstraZeneca will work to accelerate the development and deployment of AI-technology that speeds up the diagnosis of heart disease. eko.ai automates the analysis of echocardiograms to make diagnosis faster and more accessible to patients.
With A*STAR, AstraZeneca will work to advance Singapore’s research capabilities in genomics and precision medicine. Combining AstraZeneca’s bioinformatics and genomics expertise with Asia’s largest genetic databank — spearheaded by the A*STAR Genome Institute of Singapore — this partnership will help develop a better understanding of Asian genomics to inform potential new disease prevention strategies and drug targets to treat ailments of particular burden to the Asian population.
With the SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC, AstraZeneca will be exploring collaboration on the acceleration of open innovation, real-world evidence generation, and development of new health technologies to enhance patient-centric care and improve care outcomes.
New economic opportunities
Through these strategic partnerships, AstraZeneca aims to co-create economic opportunities and support Singapore’s digital economy. This includes accelerating the development of new healthcare technology, growing talent and upskilling the workforce, and helping to fuel the growth of the biomedical industry.
Specifically, research expertise built through the work with A*STAR and the SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC will inject new expertise into the biomedical community. AstraZeneca will also be providing opportunities for local and overseas training on genetic counselling through their partnership with A*STAR.
