Janssen drives innovative health-care sector

Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has strengthened cooperation with Shanghai to further drive local innovative health-care solutions.

Janssen (China) Research and Development Center of Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Co signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic collaboration with Shanghai OrigiMed Co on Friday in Shanghai.

Under the MoU, the Asia Pacific Center of Excellence in Translational Science (AP CoE-TS) under Janssen AP R&D will work with OrigiMed in harnessing real-world data (RWD) for regulatory use and apply innovative applications to accelerate clinical development.

By embracing artificial intelligence and advanced analytics, the collaboration will help provide a comprehensive picture of patients in a real-world setting. It will also deepen the understanding of current therapies, optimize clinical trial designs, identify unmet medical needs, and support data-driven decision-making in the life cycle of drug development.

In addition the collaboration will explore opportunities for the development and registry of diagnostics and companion diagnostics for early patient access, taking advantage of supportive government policies such as the Plan for the Development of Innovative Regulatory of Drugs and Medical Devices in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area of China.

"China's streamlined medical regulatory mechanism and vibrant innovation ecosystem are showing incredible potential in pursuit of the Healthy China 2030 initiative," said Li Zili, vice president and head of Asia Pacific R&D, Janssen Research & Development, LLC.

"In this ecosystem, we look to be a supporter, partner and accelerator. A key part of this effort is leveraging data science to transform how we discover and develop drugs, delivering transformative medicines to patients in China and around the world."

The use of Real-World Evidence (RWE) in clinical development has been the focus of several key policies released by the Chinese government since the beginning of 2020. It has also been encouraged in Hainan Province's Bo'ao Lecheng International Medical Pilot Zone, where the use of drugs approved in the US, Europe or Japan, but not yet in China has generated valuable RWE for Chinese patients.

"We see great potential in China for designing and implementing RWE studies in a more systematic, rigorous way, using high-quality data and a standardized infrastructure," said Najat Khan, chief data science officer and global head of R&D strategy and operations, Janssen R&D.

"At Janssen R&D, we are deeply invested in the potential of data science to increase research and development efficiency and drive real-world impact."