Innovative Big Data Approach to Focus on Biological Network Models for Cancer, Central Nervous System and Endocrine Disorders

Berg, a biopharmaceutical company committed to a data-driven, biological research approach and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have announced a pharmaceutical and diagnostic R&D partnership that will leverage the power of multi-omic biology and data analytics to obtain novel insights and potential therapeutics for cancer, central nervous system and endocrine disorders. Over the course of this five-year partnership, Berg will leverage its award-winning Interrogative Biology platform in combination with Mount Sinai's expertise in big data, advanced analytics and biological network modeling.

Berg and Mount Sinai will adopt an innovative risk and return sharing approach, with downstream royalties significantly higher than the industry standard for academia-pharma partnerships. "The partnership with Mount Sinai flips the traditional public-private partnership model and sets a new standard for pharmaceutical research and development," said Niven R. Narain, Co-Founder, President and CTO of Berg.  "Innovation in the healthcare industry extends far beyond scientific and technological advances. In order to address some of the world's worst health crises, we need to be open to such new and innovative ways of working together.  The fusion of our technologies and expertise are the perfect match to change medicine."

"We are living in an amazing time where new technologies are generating a tremendous amount of health data on an unprecedented scale, revealing novel insights into the mechanism of disease," said Eric Schadt, PhD, The Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, part of the Mount Sinai Health System. "Working with Berg, we plan to analyze big data and create predictive models to discern similarities and differences in disease patterns, identify the most effective treatment and diagnostics, and ultimately, provide better care for our patients."

Over the course of this partnership, Berg and Mount Sinai will engage in research projects involving the fields of genomics, proteomics, lipidomics, metabolomics and functional phenotypes with the goal to advance treatment options for cancer, CNS and endocrine disorders, as well as inflammation and obesity, and infectious and rare disease patients. Additionally, the partnership hopes to develop diagnostic tools to improve pharmacovigilance, diagnosis of disease and markers of therapeutic efficacy. The agreement was negotiated by Mount Sinai Innovation Partners, which encourages commercialization and partnership opportunities for novel research conducted at Mount Sinai.