NEW YORK – M2Gen on Thursday announced a collaboration with Microsoft to combine their data and analytics technology to advance drug discovery and therapeutic development in oncology.
Tampa, Florida-based M2Gen said that it will build on its work as the technology hub of the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network (ORIEN), which aims to deliver complex oncology data and analytics capabilities to researchers in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and academia. Under the new collaboration, the partners will scale this ORIEN technology on the Microsoft Azure cloud, applying Azure Synapse Analytics and related application programming interfaces.
An M2Gen spokesperson said via email that the firm will draw on clinical and genomic data from the 300,000 patients in the ORIEN dataset to create unspecified "meaningful solutions" in oncology.
"Our collaboration with Microsoft will allow us to scale these efforts, as they are providing access to advanced tools to power every part of the data cycle," M2Gen CEO Jim Gabriele said in a statement. "Together, our two companies will accelerate the impact of data and analytics on personalized cancer care for patients."
Gabriele emphasized his company's focus on "data-driven solutions" for cancer drug discovery and development.
"At Microsoft, we have long recognized the tremendous opportunity for advanced computational data to improve global health outcomes for all patients in need," said Tom McGuinness, Microsoft's corporate VP for global healthcare and life sciences. "M2Gen has taken the first step, assembling an extensive cancer dataset that has already fueled important breakthroughs in precision oncology."