IBM Patents Machine Learning Models for Drug Discovery

Armonk, N.Y. - 07 Apr 2017: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that its scientists have been granted a patent on machine learning models to predict therapeutic indications and side effects from various drug information sources. IBM Research has implemented a cognitive association engine to identify significant linkages between predicted therapeutic indications and side effects, and a visual analytics system to support the interactive exploration of these associations. IBM Research staff member Ping Zhang (left) and Program Director, Center for Computational Health Jianying Hu (right) with their newly patented invention to help drug discovery researchers identify which drug indications are typically linked to which side effects. IBM was granted U.S. Patent 9,536,194: Method and system for exploring the associations between drug side-effects and therapeutic indications for this invention. Lack of efficacy and adverse side effects are two of the primary reasons a drug fails clinical trials, each accounting for around 30 percent of failures.