Press Releases

• LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - Apr 11, 2019 -
• Acorn AI is designed to answer the most important questions across R&D and commercialisation, enabling customers to improve outcomes for patients and to accelerate growth
• The Acorn AI team is led by industry veterans who are shaping the future of life sciences
• Powered by Medidata’s standardised and structured clinical data repository, one of the largest in the world, Acorn AI immediately becomes a leading AI company dedicated to life sciences
• Industry visionary, Rama Kondru, Ph.D., is appointed CIO of Medidata and CTO of Acorn AI to accelerate development of agile, disruptive, and innovative capabilities across the Medidata platform

Medidata Solutions (NASDAQ: MDSO) is taking the next significant step to accelerate the digital transformation of life sciences in the age of precision medicine. Today, Medidata is launching Acorn AI, a Medidata company, and appoints Rama Kondru, Ph.D., as the chief information officer for Medidata. 

Acorn AI is designed to provide actionable insights to the front lines of decision-making by making data liquid across the entire lifecycle, from R&D to commercialisation. Leveraging the company’s AI capabilities and expertise, customers and partners can now unlock the power of data to conquer the most complex diseases.

Fueled by one of the largest regulatory-grade clinical data repositories in the world and built upon Medidata's cutting-edge platform, Acorn AI immediately becomes one of the leading AI companies dedicated to life sciences. The new business is backed by:

• Medidata’s cumulative R&D investments in technology, data pipelines, data science, and acquisitions such as SHYFT Analytics
• The Medidata platform, comprised of more than 17,000 clinical trials (5,000 active) and the ability to analyse 45 billion patient records from 2 million providers 
• The industry’s largest structured, standardised clinical data repository with over 4.8 million patients 
• More than 1,200 active customers with 150,000+ certified users 

To solve companies’ most complex scientific and commercial challenges, Acorn AI is proposing new products such as a Value Discovery Engine to make better go/no-go decisions; Intelligent Trials to improve study success and speed; Integrated Evidence to help demonstrate value to regulators, payors, providers and patients; and Connected Devices to integrate the new generation of medical devices within the digital healthcare ecosystem. 

The Acorn AI team is led by industry veterans who are shaping the future of life sciences. Sastry Chilukuri, who recently joined Medidata, is now the president of Acorn AI. Rachel Sherman, M.D., former principal deputy commissioner of FDA, joins as chief scientific and medical advisor. Kathy McGroddy-Goetz, Ph.D., who joined Medidata from IBM Watson Health, drives strategy and alliances. Rama Kondru leads technology development for Acorn AI, in addition to handling his broader responsibilities as the newly appointed CIO of Medidata.

Full details of the team and products can be found at www.medidata.com/acornai.

"Life science firms are looking at data-centric and AI-based business models to revamp functions, such as drug discovery, R&D, clinical trials, and commercial operations, to cater to an evolving patient profile, a converging ecosystem, and emerging therapy areas. They are looking for strategic partners that can deliver AI-as-a-Service, underwriting their risk of innovation. Medidata's new venture, Acorn AI, builds on a combination of deep life science pedigree, proprietary data sets, and AI methodologies to help life science customers reimagine their operating model," said Nitish Mittal, Practice Director at Everest Group.

To enable customers’ digital transformation with a purpose-built platform and scalable data fabric, Medidata appoints Rama Kondru as its first-ever CIO. He is now leading the company’s enterprise data strategy, architecture and future platform development for Medidata’s product portfolio. With his expertise, Medidata will accelerate the creation of leading-edge technologies, such as AI and IoT capabilities, for broad use in healthcare. Rama Kondru is now part of Medidata’s senior leadership team. 

As the former CIO of Janssen Americas, Rama Kondru is an innovative and strategically focused executive with over 20 years of experience in diverse roles in pharma, medical devices, data science, and academia. He brings a wealth of experience designing and developing technology products to deliver enhanced patient outcomes and experiences. Rama Kondru is well recognised in the industry having received multiple awards and developed 25 patents, along with authoring more than 30 peer-reviewed scientific publications. 

“For 20 years we’ve been steadfast in our mission of powering smarter treatments and healthier people by heavily investing in our platform, data, AI and expertise,” said Tarek Sherif, chairman and chief executive officer, Medidata. “With the launch of Acorn AI and Rama’s appointment, we are now uniquely positioned to create a new paradigm for life science companies who want to drive actionable insights at scale using data and AI.”