AstraZeneca enters into strategic partnerships with three leading healthcare innovators and organisations.
Signed on the 13th of February 2020, AstraZeneca will be entering partnerships with three healthcare innovators and organisations in Singapore. Partnerships were signed with Singapore-based AI start-up eko.ai, the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre (AMC) and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).
The signing was done in the presence of Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry, Mr. Chan Chun Sing, Swedish Ambassador to Singapore, H.E. Mr. Niclas Kvarnström and H.E. Mrs. Kara Owen, British High Commissioner to Singapore.
Through these collaborations, the partner organisations hope to leverage on AI, big data and genomics in the development of digital health technology. Such technology is aimed to identify risk factors for disease prevention, enable early diagnosis, and to improve treatment and management of chronic disease.
Swedish Ambassador to Singapore, H.E. Mr. Niclas Kvarnström, express his pride in AstraZeneca, which has been the foundation of Swedish health care innovation for many years. He shares that its partners in Singapore will bring this goal into practice by “applying their world-class expertise to improve the lives of people.”
“This collaboration between AstraZeneca, eko.ai, the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre (AMC) and A*STAR is one brilliant example of the many forward-looking and innovative collaborations between the UK and Singapore.” Said H.E. Mrs. Kara Owen, British High Commissioner to Singapore.
Each partner will bring to the table their individual expertise to boost the digital health technology ecosystem in Singapore. With eko.ai, AstraZeneca will be working to develop and deploy its AI technology that automates the analysis of echocardiograms for more accessible and quicker diagnosis in patients. The start-up is supported by A*STAR A*ccelerate.
Contributing their research capabilities in genomics and precision medicine is A*STAR, which will be working in combination with AstraZeneca’s bioinformatics and genomics expertise to gain better understanding of Asian genomics for development of disease management strategies and discovery of potential drug targets.
The partnership with SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC will then explore the advancement of open innovation, generating real-world evidence, and development of new health technologies focusing on patient-centric care and improve clinical care outcome.
“We are excited to partner with Singapore’s best healthcare innovators and contribute our scientific and bioinformatics capabilities to the Singaporean biomedical ecosystem, which we now consider an important play in our growing global network of health innovation hubs.” Shared Ms. Jo Feng, Senior Vice President Asia Area, AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca aims to boost Singapore’s biomedical industry through development of new technology, growing talent and provide opportunity to upskill the workforce.
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. [APBN]