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Teva and Intel team up to tackle Huntington’s with wearable tech

pharmafile | September 16, 2016 | News story | Medical Communications Huntington's, Intel, Teva, wearable tech 

Israeli pharma firm Teva is joining forces with technology giant Intel to tackle the debilitating disease Huntington’s with cutting-edge wearable tech.

Huntington’s disease is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder that results in brain cell death, leading to severely decreased coordination, jerky movements and the erosion of mental faculties. The new partnership seeks to develop a smartwatch which tracks its wearer’s functioning and movement and send the data to an Intel cloud-based platform which then analyses symptoms in a bid to monitor and treat the disorder.

The solution is being developed from Intel’s own open-source Intel Trusted Analytics Platform.

“The aim of this important project is to provide continuous objective data on the impact of Huntington disease on the patient, and, by extension, a clear understanding of the impact of treatment on patients’ quality of life,” remarked Michael Hayden, president of Teva Global R&D and chief scientific officer. “Current measurement of symptoms is largely based on observation when the patient sees the doctor. This technology now provides us with an opportunity to have continuous monitoring. This unique technology could complement future trials in HD.”

The technology is due to be deployed for the first time towards the end of the year in a sub-study within Teva’s ongoing phase 2 Open-Pride HD Study investigating Teva’s Huntexil (pridopidine) in patients with Huntington’s.

Jason Waxman, corporate vice president and general manager of the Datacenter Solutions Group at Intel added: “Patients generate data based on their day-to-day experiences that can help in improving disease management — even something as simple as wearing a smart watch can add useful insight. The complexity of analysing these data streams requires a platform for machine learning, to help drive the pharmaceutical industry towards faster, better clinical trials, potentially leading to new treatments for patients.”

Matt Fellows

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