Novartis and Hewlett Packard Enterprise join forces to advance Novartis global health efforts

• Novartis is collaborating with Hewlett Packard Enterprise to accelerate the use of data and digital technologies within its efforts to reimagine global health and improve access to healthcare and medicines.

• The collaboration will focus on three global health enablers: identifying and integrating complex data sources related to health; advancing the application of artificial intelligence, machine learning and geo-spatial analytics to these data; and expanding access to technology in remote and underserved locations.

• The first use case for the partnership will seek to develop a disease surveillance solution for dengue fever, initially focusing on India.

On June 23, Novartis and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced a collaboration that aims to accelerate the use of data and digital technologies within Novartis efforts to reimagine global health and improve access to healthcare and medicines.

The collaboration will focus on three global health enablers: identifying and integrating complex data sources related to health; advancing the application of artificial intelligence, machine learning and geo-spatial analytics to these data; and expanding access to technology in remote and underserved locations.

“Novartis is committed to applying its expertise and full organizational capability to address major, unresolved global health challenges. With Hewlett Packard Enterprise, we will seek to leverage data, digital and technology capabilities to maximize this impact,” said Lutz Hegemann, Group Head of Corporate Affairs and Global Health at Novartis.

Data-related insights are essential to improve access to healthcare and medicines, especially in low-resource settings, because they enable decision makers to target interventions to achieve the greatest impact. However, data is often unavailable, outdated, incomplete or not in digital form. Novartis and HPE therefore aim to identify and integrate diverse data sources to enable real-time disease insights to inform targeted response strategies.

Disease surveillance solution to help remediate the growing threat of dengue fever

The first use case for the partnership will seek to develop a disease surveillance solution for dengue fever, initially focusing on India. More than 3.9 billion people in over 129 countries are at risk of contracting dengue fever, with an estimated 400 million cases and 40,000 deaths each year. The World Health Organization has identified dengue fever as one of the top ten global health threats.

Together, Novartis and HPE aspire to help remediate the growing threat of dengue fever by developing publicly available insights to help authorities proactively deploy response strategies targeting at-risk populations. The resulting real-world evidence will complement the drug-discovery efforts of the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases, which is dedicated to finding new medicines to treat neglected, infectious diseases including Dengue fever.

This article was first published on June 23 by Novartis.