Sanofi ($SNY) has teamed up with Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) for a machine learning-enabled drug adherence research project. The aim is to develop tools that can predict when people with Type 2 diabetes may struggle to stick to their treatment regimens, forecasts Sanofi thinks can aid drug development and clinical trial design.
DCRI and MGH, through its Center for Assessment Technology and Continuous Health (CATCH), are independently working to tackle the problem with broadly similar approaches. Both organizations are applying predictive analytics to datasets that pull in information from nontraditional metrics. This approach, which uses machine learning to look for patterns in data including sociogeographic and behavioral factors, is seen as enabling predictions of adherence that can support a risk-based approach to managing patients.
Sanofi outlined its intentions with a hypothetical example: “if a geographical community exhibits characteristics that are shown to have a correlation with lower medication adherence, then these characteristics could be used to more effectively tailor approaches to patient engagement. Patient outreach in those communities could be adapted accordingly and intensified,” the Big Pharma wrote in a statement. “The goal is to better anticipate patient-specific drug adherence, improve prediction of clinical outcomes and guide future clinical trial designs.”
The collaborators are initially aiming their technology at Type 2 diabetes, a condition for which the need for continual, long-term self-management makes drug adherence a particularly important and onerous task. If successful, the approach could potentially be applied to any chronic disease, giving healthcare professionals a tool with which to improve outcomes and clinical trial sponsors a way of minimizing the impact of missed medications on their data. Connected pill bottles and tablets are trying to solve these problems, too, but give no indication of which patients need the most support.
For Sanofi, which has inked diabetes deals worth billions of dollars over the past 6 months, the tools could help it guide experimental treatments toward approval and maximize health outcomes for patients who take the drugs once they are on the market. Sanofi has lost ground in diabetes in recent years to competitors including Novo Nordisk ($NVO).
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