Teva collaborates with Intel to develop Huntington's smartwatch

Teva Pharmaceuticals is entering the machine learning market by teaming up with Intel to take on Huntington's disease.

The deal will see the creation of a wearable and machine learning platform capable of continuously monitoring the impact of the neurodegenerative disorder on daily life.

Characterised by uncoordinated and uncontrollable movements, cognitive deterioration and behavioural and psychological problems, Huntington's disease lends itself to wearables tracking.

The wearable will be in the form of a smartwatch equipped with sensing technology that will be able to measure and record general functioning and movement.

Recorded data will then be transferred to a cloud-based platform developed by Intel which will analyse the data using machine learning algorithms, resulting in real-time objective scores of motor symptom severity.

"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," said 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 will be first deployed in a sub-study within Teva's ongoing phase 2 Open-Pride HD Study investigating Teva's Huntexil (pridopidine) in patients with Huntington's. The study is slated to begin towards the end of the year.

“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,” said Jason Waxman, corporate vice president and general manager of the Datacenter Solutions Group at Intel. “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.”

Intel's cloud-based solution is being developed from its own open-source Intel Trusted Analytics Platform. The technology was originally developed in collaboration with the Michael J Fox Foundation for use in Parkinson's disease research.