BT Global Services and Berg Pharma have decided to join hands to accelerate the process of drug discovery and development, using resources and technology from both companies.

The joint effort will focus on the use of innovative approaches to target identification and validation and on lead optimization of novel drug candidates. It will support the use of cloud based high throughput molecular profiling techniques to select patients for clinical trials.

Berg Pharma will use the BT for Life Sciences R&D cloud service as the de facto standard for running Berg''s unique Interrogative Biology platform. BT for Life Sciences R&D, unveiled at the 10th Bio IT World meeting, is the first cloud service designed to enable collaboration within the life sciences industry for increased R&D productivity.

BT for Life Sciences R&D is being developed to become a secure and segregated platform for scientists in pharmaceutical, biotech, devices & diagnostics companies as well as in academia and government. It will enable Berg Pharma to maximize its late stage clinical trial activity and continue research and development of early stage technologies in CNS (central nervous system) and metabolic diseases.

In addition, Berg Pharma will be able to offer major pharmaceutical companies its Interrogative Biology platform from BT's cloud service in a secure manner, to produce better quality information. This will provide results that can lead to faster IND (Investigational New Drug) filings and to safer and more effective options for clinical trial participants. By running the Interrogative Biology platform in a secure cloud environment such as BT for Life.

Sciences R&D, Berg Pharma will also be able to work with major pharmaceutical companies that need faster and more innovative approaches to drug discovery and development.

Niven R. Narain, President & CTO for Berg Pharma, said, "Berg Pharma's novel approaches to drug discovery and development will integrate well with BT's new cloud services offering. This approach will enable us to gain insight to underlying disease mechanisms and pathophysiology, provide a template for expedient 'proof of principle' IND enabling testing and allow for higher clinical trial success based on much deeper disease understanding. This will readily create a diversified data ecosystem that represents the narrative of patient populations. Medicine of the future must be data driven to address the multifactorial nature of disease onset and allow for astute clinical and economic modelling. Big data is important but actionable data is invaluable."

Bas Burger, president of Global Commerce for BT Global Services, said, "BT for Life Sciences R&D provides both Berg Pharma and their customers with a cloud platform that allows them to comply with the industry's stringent security, regulatory and compliance requirements."