Chugai Accelerates Medical Drug R&D with Pharma Analytics

Pharmaceutical companies are constantly working to develop breakthrough therapeutics to help as many people as possible who are suffering from illness.

While it takes more than 10 years to develop a new drug, the success rate of new drug development is falling each year and development costs are steadily rising.

By leveraging cutting-edge digital technologies, such as AI, Japan-based Chugai is tackling the challenge of transforming its entire value chain (including the drug discovery process) to provide healthcare solutions that will also transform society.

Real-world data and real-world evidence spark innovation in new drug creation.

Data related to drug discovery varies greatly and includes big data in healthcare (real-world data, or “RWD”), such as data concerning prescriptions, insurers, electronic medical records, as well as genomic data, digital biomarkers, and more. Evidence derived from real-world data is known as real-world evidence. Using advanced analytics, such as AI, to analyze this data means that we can expect dramatic changes to occur within the research process. That includes discovering new evidence, creating new drug candidates, and improving the probability of successful drug discovery.

Japan was lagging behind other countries when it came to real-world data distribution, but the Japanese government's relaxation of regulations and the emergence of data vendors has served to boost the momentum needed for this data to be leveraged in country. Meanwhile, Chugai had been dealing with the data-related challenges faced by many other companies. That is, the company had not identified a powerful and highly secure analytics platform which stably and effectively handled big data, and could be leveraged enterprise-wide in a valuable way.

Chugai adopts Teradata Vantage as the multi-cloud data platform for enterprise analytics.

Chugai started work on bringing the efficiency of its IT infrastructure up to the level of that seen around the world, by integrating various data found internally and building a platform for enterprise analytics.

Chugai by the numbers*

786.9B Yen

In sales

15.2%

No. 1 market share in terms of oncology drugs in Japan

22.5%

No. 1 share of antibody drugs in Japan

“In 2016, the acquisition of commercial RWD in Japan and the full-fledged utilization of completed or ongoing clinical trial data had not started. We started thinking, however, that we needed to actively leverage RWD as a substitute for clinical trial control groups when applying for an approval. We also needed to strengthen product value and look for new value by leveraging acquired clinical trial data. Lastly, we needed to achieve greater efficiency by leveraging the various kinds of data that can be acquired through business operation processes.”

“One way of making that a reality was that we began considering the adoption of a data platform that could perform high-speed processing of comparatively large amounts of big data,” said Hideharu Yamamoto, deputy head, biometrics dept., clinical development div. To overcome these hurdles and promote the leveraging of data, Chugai decided to adopt Teradata Vantage on AWS.

For three years now, Chugai has integrated and leveraged various kinds of data with Vantage, including real-world data.

“Teradata is well-established and has a great track record in various industries, so we felt that we could rely on them. When introducing Teradata Vantage, there was a challenge that it was necessary to train in-house engineers with a certain level of skill. While there was a great expectation that promoting the use of Teradata Vantage would greatly improve the momentum of data utilization within the company," said Taku Takada, deputy head, biometrics dept., clinical development div., providing an explanation on why the company chose Vantage.

“We have performed RWD analyses using Teradata Vantage in numerous trials and for applications of approval. It also functions as a platform for the analysis of business activities generated in the course of our operations. While the diversification of clinical trial data and the use of solutions other than data warehouses are both areas where we are seeing progress, we intend to continue using the platform as a solution which provides high-performance analysis while transitioning to the cloud,” says Hideharu Yamamoto, giving his highly positive assessment of Vantage.

Vantage on AWS delivers value.

Teradata Vantage on AWS, the connected multi-cloud data platform for enterprise analytics, provides Chugai with three major types of value:

1. Eliminates data silos

Vantage achieves data governance by separating data storage and research, assigning the data applicable to each research project. This makes it possible to manage security and access-rights appropriately, which eliminates the need to build a data mart or a separate data warehouse. What's more, thanks to the Native Object Store feature, it is possible to transparently handle and analyze unstructured data stored in data lakes built on cloud object storage, such as Amazon S3, and structured data on Vantage.

2. Furthering the Use of AI

Vantage provides an environment in which AI tools can access all data. High-speed processing using Teradata's unique massively parallel processing technology allows for highly accurate validation using all data, as opposed to validation of analytical models using sample data.

3. Unmatched Price-Performance

Vantage on AWS offers advanced workload management which allows you to take full advantage of secured resources to perform processing. What's more, Vantage provides superior performance at a cost per query of data that competitors just cannot match.

Data’s role in Chugai Digital Vision 2030

Looking to 2030, Chugai formulated a plan called Chugai Digital Vision 2030. Through digital technologies, the company aims to become a top innovator providing healthcare solutions which serve to spark business innovation and transform society. The company is currently building what it calls Chugai Scientific Infrastructure (CSI) on Amazon Web Services, with Teradata Vantage on AWS as the connected multi-cloud data platform for that vision.

“Data platforms are essential when it comes to CSI. They play a role in freely moving large volumes of data at high speeds between cloud and on-premises environments, while also maintaining data integrity. When selecting a cloud data platform, we compared Teradata Vantage on AWS to the cloud database services offered by competitors to help us choose a solution which can carry out that role,” says Junta Goto (digital strategy dept., group manager, digital foundation group).

“It matched up with our goal of high speed performance in hybrid environments while also maintaining data integrity. Going forward, we expect that Teradata will continue to offer users even greater ease of use,” said Junta Goto as he provided his assessment of Teradata Vantage on AWS.

“Chugai aims to provide optimal treatment methods for each patient by utilizing RWD to streamline and enhance the clinical development process of new drugs, prove the value of drugs, and understand diseases. We hope that Teradata Vantage on AWS will make a significant contribution to achieving that goal.” said Hisato Nakanishi, Ph.D. senior executive director, head of digital strategy department.

Because it's not about the amount of data you have, it's how you leverage it.

Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.