Since Dassault Systèmes was created, the leading role we play in sustainable innovation has led us to adopt the ambition of achieving harmony between product, nature and life. We are now applying the knowledge and know-how we have developed in the world of products to the world of life. The aim of using virtual worlds to cure people and help them lead a better life has been driving us for many years. We firmly believe that this requires the virtual twin of the human body – created on our 3DEXPERIENCE platform with its modeling, simulation, data intelligence and collaboration capacities.
By joining forces with Medidata, we now have an unrivaled set of assets with which to pursue our vision and develop our scientific culture. By combining data intelligence and simulation, we can offer more intelligent therapies and contribute to life sciences what we have been contributing to manufacturing since we created the first digital mock-up.
MEDIDATA WAS FOUNDED 20 YEARS AGO WITH THE GOAL OF CREATING TECHNOLOGY AND SERVICES THAT WOULD POSITIVELY IMPACT THE LIFE SCIENCES INDUSTRY AND, ULTIMATELY, PATIENTS’ LIVES.
"Our mission then, as it is now, was to power smarter treatments and healthier people.
The internet was developing rapidly back then, and we saw a better way to collect and manage clinical trial data, which were largely manual processes at the time. Innovative data and technology were central to our business plan and, as our success and reputation grew, our electronic data capture (EDC) solution became a de facto standard for running clinical trials. Today, more than half of all clinical trials use one of our solutions. There’s an excellent chance that a medicine you or a loved one has taken was developed with Medidata’s help.
As part of Medidata’s evolution, around 10 years ago, we asked our customers for the right to use the huge volume of data we were collecting. This was highly strategic from a business perspective and transformative from a scientific standpoint. We now have billions of data points to analyze for strategic insights and to generate evidence for our life science customers and partners; it represents a tremendous competitive advantage.
Our creative approach to problem-solving and purposedriven mission is what made us an attractive company for Dassault Systèmes to acquire. Our companies share similar cultures and values.
For several years, Dassault Systèmes has been applying its expertise, developed in the aerospace and automotive sectors, to life sciences under its BIOVIA brand. Joining forces with Dassault Systèmes creates a fabulous opportunity to drive even more rapid, transformative progress in the life sciences industry. Today, a new wave of innovation is taking place, based on creating targeted therapies and treatments that are tailored to the patient.
Yet, there are still decades of traditional clinical practices fraught with inefficiencies to overcome. I have no doubt, though, that there is growing recognition that the life sciences industry needs to digitally disrupt its R&D operating model. The realization that precision medicine has benefits for both the patient and the business is gaining momentum. This is the kind of transformation that took place in the aerospace industry several decades ago, when Dassault Systèmes started to visualize how to create a digital mock-up of an aircraft and then a virtual twin.
The same thing is going to happen in life sciences, and then in healthcare more broadly. The way in which care is delivered is changing, too, with patients becoming more proactive in tracking their own data and using it in discussions with their doctor to manage their health. In precision medicine, we are working on solutions – therapeutic and care-based – that are tailored to the individual patient.
To achieve that target, we need to know about the patient’s genome and phenotype, lifestyle and environment, and other clinical data points to develop a working model. To that end, the patient experience will guide us. A life, from cradle to grave, is a set of experiences, and what’s important is not the destination, but the journey. I like to think that what we’re doing improves that journey. And, in partnership with Dassault Systèmes, we will have a positive impact on the world. People are proud to be associated with a company like ours."
Tarek Sherif, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Medidata, head of Life Sciences & Healthcare sector, Dassault Systèmes
