BURLINGTON, Ontario and
MARKHAM, Ontario, Feb. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Boehringer
Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. and IBM
Canada (NYSE: IBM) announced today at the Healthcare Information
and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Orlando, Florida, their plans to explore the
use of blockchain technology in clinical trials.
This collaboration underscores Boehringer Ingelheim's commitment
to healthcare innovation and marks the first time that blockchain
technology will be explored in a clinical trial setting in
Canada.
Based on the findings of regulatory authorities, processes to
ensure the quality of clinical trials are frequently inadequate,
and clinical trial records are often erroneous or incomplete, which
may put patient safety and interpretability of trials at risk.
Significant opportunity exists to improve the quality of
clinical trial processes and record keeping. Boehringer Ingelheim
(Canada) Ltd. and IBM Canada aim
to test whether blockchain technology in clinical trials provides a
decentralized framework that enables data integrity, provenance,
transparency, and patient empowerment as well as automation of
processes, ultimately improving trial quality and patient safety at
reduced cost.
"Our guiding philosophy is to bring value to patients and the
healthcare system through innovation," said Dr. Uli Brödl, Vice
President, Medical and Regulatory Affairs, Boehringer Ingelheim
(Canada) Ltd. "The clinical trial
ecosystem is highly complex as it involves different stakeholders,
resulting in limited trust, transparency and process inefficiencies
without true patient empowerment. Patients are at the heart of
everything we do, so we are looking into novel solutions to improve
patient safety and empowerment."
IBM Canada brings core blockchain technologies to this
collaboration which provides patient consent, secure health data
exchange and patient engagement. IBM's technology helps provide
trust and transparency around the complex trial process.
"IBM is excited to collaborate with Boehringer Ingelheim to
explore how blockchain technology could help improve the quality of
clinical trials," said Claude Guay,
General Manager, IBM Services, IBM Canada. "We've been using
blockchain in other industries, and we are now investigating how we
can use this technology to give Canadian patients the same level of
security and trust when it comes to their personal health
information."
By collaborating with leaders in other sectors to devise
solutions that benefit patients and our healthcare system,
Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd.
continues to spearhead innovation and pave the way for future
cross-stakeholder collaborations and partnerships.
About Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd.
Improving the health
and quality of life of patients is the goal of Boehringer
Ingelheim, a research-driven pharmaceutical company. In doing so,
the focus is on diseases for which no satisfactory treatment option
exists to date. The company therefore concentrates on developing
innovative therapies that can extend patients' lives. In animal
health, Boehringer Ingelheim stands for advanced prevention.
Family-owned since it was established in 1885, Boehringer
Ingelheim is one of the top 20 companies in the pharmaceutical
industry. Some 50,000 employees create value through innovation
daily for the three business areas: human pharmaceuticals, animal
health and biopharmaceuticals. In 2017, Boehringer Ingelheim
achieved net sales of nearly 18.1 billion
euros. Research and development expenditure, exceeding
three billion euros, corresponded to
17.0 per cent of net sales.
As a family-owned company, Boehringer Ingelheim plans in
generations and focuses on long-term success, rather than
short-term profit. The company therefore aims at organic growth
from its own resources with simultaneous openness to partnerships
and strategic alliances in research. In everything it does,
Boehringer Ingelheim naturally adopts responsibility towards
mankind and the environment.
The Canadian headquarters of Boehringer Ingelheim was
established in 1972 in Montreal,
Quebec and is now located in Burlington, Ontario. Boehringer Ingelheim
employs approximately 600 people across Canada.
More information about Boehringer Ingelheim can be found at
www.boehringer-ingelheim.ca or in our annual report:
http://annualreport.boehringer-ingelheim.com.
About IBM Canada
IBM Canada is headquartered in
Markham, Ontario and is one of
Canada's top ten private R&D
investors. IBM has a unique approach to collaboration that provides
academic researchers, small and large business, start-ups and
developers with business strategies and computing tools they need
to innovate. IBM is the leader in open-source blockchain solutions
built for the enterprise. As an early member of Hyperledger and
active contributor to the Hyperledger Fabric and Stellar blockchain
projects, IBM is dedicated to advance cross-industry blockchain
technologies supporting the development of openly-governed
transactional business networks.
For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/ca.
For more information:
Diana Robson
Proof Inc.
drobson@getproof.com
(416) 969-2815
Jennifer Mota
Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada)
Ltd.
jennifer.mota@boehringer-ingelheim.com
(905) 631-4739
Meg Nair
IBM Canada
Meg.nair@ibm.com
(647) 444-5085
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SOURCE IBM