Posted on February 19th, 2021 by Ann-Marie Roche in Pharma R&D
We have looked back at some of the biggest advances in 2020, but it’s a new year and time to look ahead, so we asked our Life Sciences team what they are looking forward to in 2021.
“Predicting the unknown!” says Thibault Géoui, Senior Director of Discovery Biology & Predictive Risk Management. “We are using (known) scientific data to predict unknown facts—e.g. predicting targets against COVID-19 and drug repurposing—and we can extend that to other diseases. We at Elsevier are part of the effort to bring new predictive tools to life science researchers in different domains, from Biology to Chemistry and Pharmacology.”
Crucial scientific knowledge and advances are often tucked away in patents, and Elsevier continues to be committed to providing comprehensive and up-to-date access to those insights in the new year. Ivan Krstic, Director of Product Management, says that “In 2021, we are initiating a multi-year project designed to transform our patent content coverage in Reaxys, building the largest and richest collection of patents relevant for drug development and chemistry research.” Access to these new patents is sure to help life sciences companies remain innovative and competitive.
Tom Williams of Life
Sciences Professionals Services is encouraged by the industry’s drive “to
disseminate medical information to healthcare professionals in an unbiased and
non-promotional manner.” He appreciates that companies like MILE, phactMI and
PVN-MI CANADA are supporting the information needs of the medical community,
patients and caregivers, and that they are finding new ways and channels to
provide this data and information.
The management of information is an issue that looms large for life science organizations, especially amidst increasing requirements for adverse event reporting. That’s why Life Science consultant Nancy Berners-Lee is excited about the new version of Elsevier’s QUOSA, an enterprise literature management solution that helps companies organize and centralize the process of collecting and sharing scientific information. “We are in the process of migrating our first customer from the QUOSA legacy system to the new QUOSA,” says Berners-Lee. “Further migrations and new implementations are planned throughout 2021.”
Professional
Services Director Anton Yuryev’s biggest interests going into 2021 are in the emergence
of personalized medicine and the genomics market. Advances in these areas have
already had a big impact on drug discovery and development and are sure to
bring us even more effective treatments for a wider spectrum of diseases and
conditions in the future.
“I am most hoping
that the amazing spirit of collaboration seen during the pandemic will continue
in other research areas,” continues Williams regarding his aspirations for
2021. “Lessons learned on how to treat and prevent the novel virus could be
used in the development of therapeutics in other disease areas, particularly
around rare diseases to speed up the development and approval of effective
therapeutics.”
Matthew Clark, Senior
Director of Scientific Services for Elsevier R&D Solutions, remains
interested in looking at the vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 and getting
the analysis of key opinion leaders as we continue to see developments in these
areas. As much as we would all like to be past this crisis, the fact is that
COVID-19 will be a challenge the world continues to grapple with in one way or
another for the foreseeable future.
The entire life
sciences team here at Elsevier is eager to keep supporting the industry with
information, research and tools as we face all of these challenges and more in
2021.
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