AstraZeneca and Oracle have announced a global artificial intelligence (AI) collaboration to accelerate clinical research and integrate evidence-driven insights into clinical workflows, with the aim of improving patient care.
The collaboration will combine AstraZeneca’s scientific, clinical development and regulatory expertise with Oracle’s real-world data, cloud infrastructure and AI-enabled clinical capabilities.
According to the companies, the initiative will explore practical ways to connect scientific research directly with clinical workflows and transform healthcare delivery.
Initial areas of focus include clinical trial recruitment, earlier diagnosis, drug safety monitoring and the use of real-world evidence throughout a medicine’s lifecycle.
The programmes will span AstraZeneca’s core therapeutic areas, including oncology; cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases; respiratory and immunology; and rare diseases.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot 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.”
Oracle CEO Mike Sicilia said some of the most significant opportunities for AI lie in healthcare, where better use of data can help translate scientific innovation into improved patient outcomes.
Initial programme to focus on hypertension care in Abu Dhabi
The collaboration will involve multiple international projects, with key regions including the US, the Middle East and Europe. The companies will work with local governments and operate within applicable regulatory frameworks to assess whether successful approaches can be scaled in the future.
The first programme will focus on supporting hypertension care and clinical research in Abu Dhabi, in partnership with healthcare company M42. The initiative aims to help clinical teams identify patients with uncontrolled hypertension, implement guideline-directed care and improve recruitment for clinical trials.
AstraZeneca and Oracle also intend to explore a continuous learning model in which insights from clinical research and routine care inform future study design, safety monitoring and patient care.
The companies plan to establish shared governance frameworks, reusable technical components and agreed outcome measures to evaluate results and determine whether successful approaches can be extended across disease areas and geographies.
Anne-Claire Gerbaldi, chief digital, data and AI officer at AstraZeneca, said too many patients are diagnosed late or face a long journey to get the care they need.
“Bringing together the unique capabilities of Oracle and AstraZeneca, we believe we can support smarter clinical trials, strengthen safety monitoring, and help ensure patients are diagnosed sooner and receive the right care,” she said.
Seema Verma, executive vice president and general manager of Oracle Health and Life Sciences, said healthcare progress depends on shortening the distance between scientific insights and the decisions clinicians make every day.
“This collaboration has the potential to help health systems identify eligible patients sooner, broaden access to clinical trials, and generate evidence that supports the next decision, all under the governance of the health systems delivering care,” she said.
Data privacy and governance safeguards
The collaboration will use de-identified real-world data under robust governance, privacy and security arrangements. AstraZeneca will not receive patient-identifiable information.
Each proposed project will undergo a separate review and proceed only after the necessary legal, privacy, regulatory, ethical and institutional safeguards are in place.
The companies have signed a non-binding term sheet outlining the collaboration. Financial details have not been disclosed.
