IBM (NYSE: IBM) Watson Health and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE and TASE: TEVA) announced that Teva has been selected as its first Foundational Life Sciences Partner for the Watson Health Cloud. As part of this new strategic partnership, Teva becomes the first global pharmaceutical company to tap the power of the Watson Health Cloud to benefit patients and healthcare providers across geographies.
Teva has chosen the IBM Watson Health Cloud as a preferred global technology platform 
and aims to build solutions designed to help millions of individuals worldwide with complex and chronic conditions such as asthma, pain, migraine and neurodegenerative diseases. In addition, a joint Teva-IBM Research team will deploy Big Data and machine learning technology to create disease models and advanced therapeutic solutions.
“Teva is actively exploring the e-health evolution with a strong focus on fulfilling unmet and emerging patients’ needs. The IBM Watson Health Cloud provides a strong foundation on which we can realize this vision,” said Guy Hadari, SVP and CIO for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. “By building on the Watson Health Cloud, we believe Teva will be in a unique position to put the best information and insights in the hands of physicians, care teams and patients, to empower treatment optimization for individuals and populations across the spectrum of acute and chronic conditions. Watson holds promise to provide Teva with better insights, real-time feedback and options for clinicians to consider to improve patient care.”
Watson is a groundbreaking cognitive computing platform that represents a new era of computing based on its ability to interact in natural language, process vast amounts of Big Data to uncover patterns and insights, and learn from each interaction. The Watson Health Cloud provides an open development platform for physicians, researchers, insurers and companies focused on creating health and wellness solutions.
Teva will work with IBM on long-range platform and solutions development, with experts collaborating to enhance IBM Watson Health Cloud capabilities and explore synergies with existing Watson Health ecosystem partners. The company, which has one of the world’s largest portfolios of medicines, expects to develop solutions designed to collect and analyze real world evidence, draw powerful insights and inform a variety of initiatives such as reducing drug misuse or increasing prescribed medication adherence.
“Teva’s pioneering digital health vision, reach across global markets, extensive portfolio of medicines and significant industry experience make them a preferred life science ecosystem partner for the Watson Health Cloud,” said Mike Rhodin, senior vice president, IBM Watson.
IBM’s Global Business Services will work closely with a Teva Analytics team to assess the data and the analytics model requirements for the Real World Evidence e-health solution.
IBM Watson: Pioneering a New Era of Computing
Watson is the first commercially available cognitive computing capability representing a new era in computing. The system, delivered through the cloud, analyzes high volumes of data and complex questions posed in natural language and proposes evidence-based answers. Watson is continuously gaining in value and knowledge over time, from previous interactions.
In January 2014, IBM launched the IBM Watson unit, a business dedicated to developing and commercializing cloud-delivered cognitive computing technologies. The move signified a strategic shift by IBM to deliver a new class of software, services and apps that improves by learning, and discovers insights from massive amounts of Big Data. As part of the unit, the company has increased the number and diversity of cognitive computing services delivered to its partners, adding new beta Watson services in February 2015, and scalable deep learning APIs with the acquisition of AlchemyAPI in March 2015.
In April 2015, the company continued to build on its strengths in cognitive computing, analytics, security and cloud with the launch of IBM Watson Health and the Watson Health Cloud platform. The new unit will help improve the ability of doctors, researchers and insurers to innovate by surfacing new insights from the massive amount of personal health data being created daily. The Watson Health Cloud allows this information to be anonymized, shared and combined with a dynamic and constantly growing aggregated view of clinical, research and social health data that clients choose to share.
About IBM
For more information on IBM Watson, visit their website. For more information on IBM Watson Health, visit their website. Check out the IBM Watson press kit here. Join the conversation at #ibmwatson and #watsonhealth. Follow Watson on Facebook and see Watson on YouTube and Flickr.
About Teva
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE and TASE: TEVA) is a leading global pharmaceutical company that delivers high-quality, patient-centric healthcare solutions to millions of patients every day. Headquartered in Israel, Teva is the world’s largest generic medicines producer, leveraging its portfolio of more than 1,000 molecules to produce a wide range of generic products in nearly every therapeutic area. In specialty medicines, Teva has a world-leading position in innovative treatments for disorders of the central nervous system, including pain, as well as a strong portfolio of respiratory products. Teva integrates its generics and specialty capabilities in its global research and development division to create new ways of addressing unmet patient needs by combining drug development capabilities with devices, services and technologies. Teva’s net revenues in 2014 amounted to $20.3 billion. For more information, visit their website.