Improving UCB Business by Use of IBM Watson for Drug Discovery

This document discusses the use of IBM Watson for Drug Discovery to streamline drug development and reduce time and cost for UCB, a multinational pharmaceutical company. It includes an analysis of feasibility, benefits, costs, and risks, as well as a recommendation and implementation plan.

RUNNING HEAD: IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG
DISCOVERY
IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG DISCOVERY

IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG DISCOVERY
1. Executive Summary
With the rising incidence of various complex diseases, their cure in controlled
trials needs to be determined. The healthcare industry will need to make use real data
which can overcome all potential challenges faced in the healthcare industry and enable a
holistic approach to patient health. The use of data analytics could enable companies to
depict the real value of their drugs. UCB being a multinational pharmaceutical company
need to devise ways such that it can streamline their drug development so as to reduce the
time and cost a drug takes to reach the market and attain competitive advantage. The IBM
Watson for Drug Discovery allows cognitive computing leverage for the purpose of
identifying new drug and also in redefining current drugs. Analysis of the package
feasibility and viability reveals that there are tremendous opportunities in adopting the
package for UCB. The IBM Watson for Drug Discovery once has been selected as the
appropriate package for the Company will need a project plan to carry out its
implementation procedure.
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IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG DISCOVERY
Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................2
1. Business & IT Alignment .................................................................................................................4
2. Identify “IBM Watson for Drug Discovery” ....................................................................................5
The IBM Watson for Drug Discovery allows cognitive computing leverage for the purpose of identifying
new drug and also in redefining current drugs (Chen, Argentinis and Weber, 2016). It allows a cheaper,
quicker and an effective method for drug discovery. The primary benefits of the package are its
economic viability, making R&D viable; organizational feasibility, an increasing number of organizations
are adapting in their operations; and technical feasibility, as it has been proved that the package can
have access to resources. .....................................................................................................................5
3. Analyze IBM Watson for Drug Discovery (Define feasibility, Benefits, Costs, Comparing feasibility and
cost-benefit analysis of each alternative, and Risks) ..................................................................................5
4. Recommendation ...................................................................................................................................7
5. Create a plan for implementation ..........................................................................................................8
6. References.............................................................................................................................................10
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IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG DISCOVERY
1. Business & IT Alignment
Increasing competition and pressure from the government on pharmaceutical
companies led to devising strategies that could allow reducing costs and retain
competitive positioning (Viaene, 2017). With the rising incidence of various complex
diseases, their cure in controlled trials needs to be determined. The healthcare industry
will need to make use real data which can overcome all potential challenges faced in the
healthcare industry and enable a holistic approach to patient health. The use of data
analytics could enable companies to depict the real value of their drugs. UCB being a
multinational pharmaceutical company need to devise ways such that it can streamline
their drug development so as to reduce the time and cost a drug takes to reach the market
and attain competitive advantage. The organization needs to adopt IBM Watson for Drug
Discovery and align it with business objectives. Aligning use of data usage and analytics
will allow the organization to make better use of resources and capabilities to achieve
competitive advantages. The VRIO business analysis framework provides for realizing
resources and capabilities of a firm such that the organization can achieve competitive
advantage (Cardeal and Antonio, 2012). The VRIO internal analysis framework allows
questioning the ability of the firm to explore value, rarity, imitability, and organization of
the new resource. The IBM Watson for Drug Discovery will enable innovation of drug
within the company, collaborating with the business objectives. It will have sponsorship
and will be conducted by means of an analytical culture and talented people. The
software has data capturing capability which will capture data in vast amounts and then
process them to be used for drug discovery. The software possesses technical and
infrastructural architecture so as to place analytics as a centralized unit for excellence
(Holzinger, Dehmer and Jurisica, 2014). The Company will be able to gain immensely
from data capturing and analytical capability by being able to discover drugs using data
from the entire world in devising a valuable drug.
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IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG DISCOVERY
2. Identify “IBM Watson for Drug Discovery”
The IBM Watson for Drug Discovery allows cognitive computing leverage for the
purpose of identifying new drug and also in redefining current drugs (Chen, Argentinis
and Weber, 2016). It allows a cheaper, quicker and an effective method for drug
discovery. The primary benefits of the package are its economic viability, making R&D
viable; organizational feasibility, an increasing number of organizations are adapting in
their operations; and technical feasibility, as it has been proved that the package can have
access to resources.
3. Analyze IBM Watson for Drug Discovery (Define feasibility, Benefits, Costs, Comparing
feasibility and cost-benefit analysis of each alternative, and Risks)
Prior to introducing a package, it becomes necessary to evaluate the alternative
course of action. The analysis of IBM Watson for Drug Discovery needs to be conducted
on the basis of its functionality (Jenkins and Ma’ayan, 2013). However, UCB prior to
applying IBM Watson into its business need to define its feasibility, benefits, costs,
compare feasibility with cost-benefit analysis and then evaluate the various risks as
highlighted below;
o Feasibility: The feasibility of adopting IBM Watson Drug Discovery
package has to be undertaken on the grounds that whether it is too risky
for the business or not. While IT investments and use of Big data and
analytics are now considered to be essential, the current package needs to
be evaluated for its economic feasibility, technical feasibility,
organizational feasibility, and others. As UCB Pharmaceuticals is already
making significant investments in drug discovery through R&D,
amounting to 1.05 billion pounds for the R&D. The package allows
developing a drug costing US$2.6 billion overcoming all the challenges
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IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG DISCOVERY
that might take place such as trials, regulatory approvals, failed therapies
and so on. Therefore, as a multinational pharmaceutical company, UCB
can easily adopt the usage of the package. In the evaluation of Technical
feasibility, it needs to be seen that all the resources, especially human
resources and capabilities in terms of IT infrastructure are present
(specific technical needed in order to). The payback period method will
be adopted for IBM Watson Drug Discovery and it is estimated that it will
be approximately 5 years. Additional human resources need to be trained
in the software package. UCB has made use of packages in the past which
proves that it has the skills and knowledge to adopt the package.
Organizational feasibility is present as the Company will gradually
introducing analytics in their operations. Over a period of 1 year the
software package with analytics features will be introduced in the
Company. Other factors present includes legal and ethical feasibility,
which UCB can easily take into consideration. The project from a
feasibility point of view is highly acceptable.
o Benefits: The package will offer benefits to the IT portfolio in terms of
strategic, transactional, infrastructural and informational advantages (give
specific advantages that USB will get). UCB will be able to discover
drugs faster and in a more affordable manner. The data collection
processes within R&D will be totally carried out by the package. There
will be several tangible and intangible (give specific benefits of them for
USB)benefits to UCB as well, as IBM Watson will provide cheaper and
faster drug discovery methods. The Company by attaining competitive
advantage will be able to ear greater revenues than compared to its
competitors.
o Costs: Acquiring the package will require upfront costs, thereafter there
will be renewal charges on annual basis. While these are some fixed costs
(how much?? US$2.6 billion), there will be variable costs will depend
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IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG DISCOVERY
upon training costs incurred and other contingencies taking place (how
much??) in terms of employee training US$1 million (how much??),
consultant hiring US$ 1 million(how much??), operations US$0.50
million(how much??) and maintenance costs US$ 0.50 million (how
much??) and contingency costs US$0.30 million (how much??) and so on
(how much??). There should present some specific amount to know
roughly cost
o Comparison: The cost versus benefit comparison reveals that the package
needs to have a minimum of 3 years payback period. The package will
easily be able to discover a drug that is rare and valuable in the market,
which in turn will allow UCB to gain competitive advantage and earn
abnormal revenues. The ROI for this investment should roughly range
between 15-20%. (please provide ROI information in order to invested
in IBM Watson)
o Risks: The possible risks of adopting UCB includes having a realistic
budget and ensuring that there is no resistance from the employees in
adopting the package.
4. Recommendation
Analysis of the package feasibility and viability reveals that there are tremendous
opportunities in adopting the package for UCB. However, while adopting the package UCB need
to undertake the following key recommendations, such as;
➢ UCB can evaluate other packages for drug discovery such as OMICtools, Skanlt
software and Unicorn software. These packages offer an alternative to IBM
Watson Drug Discovery and are less expensive. These packages do not include all
the benefits and features that are offered by IBM Watson but are used by many
companies in their drug discovery process.
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IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG DISCOVERY
➢ The other can be selected however might be chosen given the increasing rate of
competition in the pharmaceutical industry. While IBM Watson is a well-famed
package, very few companies are actually making use of the same. Companies
that are making use of IBM Watson might end up with the same drug discovery as
that of UCB. Therefore, UCB, in order to maintain a competitive advantage in the
industry and have a core competence, will need to adopt a varied package than
used by a competitor.
5. Create a plan for implementation
The business case will need to have an implementation plan as this is a high-level project
(Kelly III and Hamm, 2013). The IBM Watson for Drug Discovery once has been selected as the
appropriate package for the Company will need a project plan to carry out its implementation
procedure. The implementation procedure will include a schedule, milestone plan, determining
project key performance indicators and conducting user satisfaction surveys.
• Schedule: The implementation of the project will be initiated at once it is considered to
be feasible for the organization. The project start date will be on 1st April 2019, that is at
the initiation of the financial new year. The project will need to determine human
resources, technical resources, and other capabilities prior to its application. The project
completion date will be within 9 months of its initiation. As this project is relatively new
in its capability for drug discovery it will take some time to determine its resources and
capabilities as needed. The project realization will take some time as it is based on R&D
endeavors.
• Milestone plan: The major project milestone includes conducting feasibility, determining
resources and capabilities, assessing financial resources, risk planning and so on. The
milestone will be computed once the project initiation takes place and
Table 1: Project Milestone
GANTT
CHART
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IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG DISCOVERY
Project for Adopting IBM Watson for Drug
Discovery
Topic
Days
1 20 30 40 50 100 150 200
27
0
Project Proposal
Feasibility Evaluation
Financial Feasibility
Technical Feasibility
Budget Preparation
Human Resource Recruitment &
Training
Legal and Ethical Consideration
Test Run
Final Implementation
• Project Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): The project will need to progress according
to its KPIs. There will be varied KPIs for the project such as drug discovery time frame
required in the past as compared to future, drug efficacy and applicability, cost of
manufacturing a drug and competitiveness of a drug.
• User satisfaction survey: After the Company has adopted IBM Watson for its drug
discovery it will need to conduct a user satisfaction survey. The user satisfaction survey
will be conducted on a wide range of stakeholders that includes customers, shareholders,
employees and so on. Such feedback will be compared with feedback that has been
received in the past.
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IMPROVING UCB BUSINESS BY USE OF IBM WATSON FOR DRUG DISCOVERY
6. References
Cardeal, N., & Antonio, N. S. (2012). Valuable, rare, inimitable resources and organization
(VRIO) resources or valuable, rare, inimitable resources (VRI) capabilities: What leads to
competitive advantage?. Accessed from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?
abstract_id=2347978
Chen, Y., Argentinis, J. E., & Weber, G. (2016). IBM Watson: how cognitive computing can be
applied to big data challenges in life sciences research. Clinical therapeutics, 38(4), 688-
701. Accessed from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149291815013168
Holzinger, A., Dehmer, M., & Jurisica, I. (2014). Knowledge discovery and interactive data
mining in bioinformatics-state-of-the-art, future challenges and research directions. BMC
bioinformatics, 15(6), I1. Accessed from
https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2105-15-S6-I1
Jenkins, S. L., & Ma’ayan, A. (2013). Systems pharmacology meets predictive, preventive,
personalized and participatory medicine. Pharmacogenomics, 14(2), 119-122. Accessed
from https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/pgs.12.186
Kelly III, J. E., & Hamm, S. (2013). Smart machines: IBM's Watson and the era of cognitive
computing. Columbia University Press. Accessed from https://books.google.co.in/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=tS8CAQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP6&dq=IBM+Watson+for+Drug+Disc
overy&ots=q8as3tv24i&sig=u1KxwnZDCtpdDSFkXLfTC4xf1nc
Viaene, S. (2017). UCB-Data is the new drug. Accessed from
https://repository.vlerick.com/handle/20.500.12127/5750
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