AWS partners with Pfizer and Rivian on drug discovery and electric vehicles
Amazon Web Services Inc.’s customer acquisition spree continued apace today with the cloud computing giant announcing new arrangements with the pharmaceutical and biotech firm Pfizer Inc. and the electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian Automotive LLC.
The partnership with Pfizer is perhaps the most interesting, as the drug giant said it’s planning to stretch the capabilities of Amazon’s cloud computing capabilities to the limit to try to improve the way new medicines are developed, manufactured and distributed for testing and clinical trials.
Pfizer’s ambitions to reinvent drug discovery and development were announced during AWS re:Invent 2021. The company’s have created a new Pfizer Amazon Collaboration Team initiative that will see Pfizer’s laboratories, clinical manufacturing and supply teams tap Amazon’s expertise in data analytics, machine learning, compute, storage, security and cloud data warehousing.
Pfizer, which is well-known these days for its COVID-19 vaccine, said it’s planning to use AWS in multiple ways. For instance, it aims to incorporate predictive maintenance into its continuous clinical manufacturing processes with AWS’s machine learning tools, including the Amazon Lookout for Equipment service. That service analyzes sensor data for signs of abnormal equipment behavior, and should enable Pfizer to maximize uptime for its centrifuges, agitators, pulverizers, coaters and other machinery it uses.
Under the PACT initiative, Pfizer is also building a prototype system that aims to detect abnormal data points in its continuous clinical drug manufacturing platform. The idea is to use Amazon SageMaker, a service for building machine learning models, Amazon Lookout for Equipment, Amazon Lookout for Metrics and Amazon QuickSight in tandem to create advanced machine learning models that can detect any issues in Pfizer’s solid, oral-dose medicine manufacturing process.
There will be quite a bit of teamwork going on too. Pfizer’s scientists are collaborating with Amazon’s healthcare and life sciences professionals to try and create a better way for researchers to extract and mine data from legacy documents. Once again they’ll be using an array of AWS machine learning tools and services to do this.
Pfizer owns thousands of legacy and in some cases paper-based documents that contain valuable data concerning hundreds of older drug development processes. The data relates to synthetic chemistry routes, recipes, analytical tests, method development, formulation composition, clinical manufacturing campaigns, batch records, technology transfer, and many other types of work.
“Housed within these documents are potentially powerful insights that could point Pfizer researchers in the right direction for developing new drugs or repurposing existing ones,” Amazon said.
The problem is there’s no way to search through all of these documents quickly and easily – yet. Pfizer and Amazon are working to change. They’re currently developing a system that will, it’s hoped, be able to automatically extract, ingest and process data from Pfizer’s library of legacy documents to aid new lab experiments.
“Pfizer’s goal with AWS is to expedite the processes for drug discovery and development in ways that can ultimately enhance patient experiences and deliver new therapies to market,” said Andrew McKillop, vice president of pharmaceutical sciences, worldwide research, development and medical at Pfizer.
Amazon’s work with Rivian could well prove to be just as impactful for the world of electric vehicles. Rivian is an electric vehicle startup that’s targeting both the consumer and the commercial markets. AWS’s parent company Amazon.com Inc. is an investor in Rivian and has already agreed to buy 100,000 of its delivery vans for its logistics operations.
So it’s little surprise that Rivian has now chosen AWS as its “preferred cloud provider.” Rivian already uses AWS’ cloud in many ways, both to manage its business operations and streamline the development of its vehicles.
For instance, Rivian uses Amazon’s cloud as the backbone of its software-defined vehicle architecture and its over-the-air software updates, through which it adds new functionality and features remotely. Rivian’s cars are constantly in communication with Amazon’s cloud, allowing the company to perform remote diagnostics, predictive maintenance and rapid testing and deployment of new software updates. Rivian also relies on AWS for business operations including sales, marketing, distribution and internal vehicle servicing.
“By leveraging AWS, and building a central data lake to interconnect Rivian’s operations, products, and services, we can enable proactive diagnostics and add intelligence to our vehicles, and then use what we learn to generate synergies and scale efficiencies,” said Rivian Vice President of Software Development Wassym Bensaid.
Image: Dertrick/Pixabay
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