Oracle has announced an agreement with AstraZeneca to explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and real-world data can help clinicians identify eligible patients for clinical trials, accelerate evidence generation, and bring relevant research insights into everyday care. The collaboration is expected to combine AstraZeneca’s scientific and therapeutic expertise with Oracle’s health data, cloud, AI, analytics, and clinical workflow capabilities.

Through a non-binding agreement, the companies plan to explore selected use cases that could improve clinical-trial efficiency and success by leveraging modern applications and AI to help care teams identify eligible patients earlier and easier, resulting in greater access to clinical trials for patients in need and helping to overcome one of the largest obstacles in clinical trials—patient recruitment. Initial disease areas to be explored could include oncology; cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases; respiratory and immunology; and rare diseases.

Pascal Soriot, Chief Executive Officer, AstraZeneca said, “This unique collaboration brings leaders in healthcare and AI together at a global scale to accelerate the journey from the discovery of medicine to patient care. Combining AstraZeneca’s world class science with Oracle’s deep data and technology expertise, we can help clinicians identify patients sooner, optimise clinical trials, and generate evidence continuously across the lifecycle of a medicine.”

The companies intend to explore a continuous learning model in which insights from clinical research and routine care help inform future study design, safety monitoring, and patient care.

Mike Sicilia, Chief Executive Officer, Oracle, noted, “Some of the most important opportunities for AI are in healthcare, where better use of data can help turn scientific innovation into better outcomes for patients. By bringing AstraZeneca’s scientific expertise together with Oracle’s data, cloud, AI, and healthcare capabilities, we have an opportunity to help accelerate research, connect more patients to clinical trials, and ultimately bring relevant insights into care faster.”

The companies plan to establish shared governance, reusable technical components, and agreed outcome measures to assess results and determine whether successful approaches could extend across disease areas and geographies.