MIT's School of Engineering and Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company are working together to drive innovation and application of new artificial intelligence applications for healthcare and drug development.

WHY IT MATTERS
The program, based at MIT's Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health, or J-Clinic – which specializes in developing new healthcare AI tools – is funded with a three-year investment from Takeda and aims to leverage the expertise of both organizations.

With the collaboration, MIT will gain access to pharmaceutical infrastructure and expertise, and develop new educational program through J-Clinic that will support MIT faculty, students, researchers, and staff in their approach to AI development. The new program will combine algorithm and hardware innovations, and create multidimensional collaborations between academia and industry.

THE LARGER TREND
The MIT-Takeda Program will focus on funding as many as 10 flagship research projects per year in the areas of machine learning and health,including diagnosis of disease, prediction of treatment response, development of novel biomarkers, process control and improvement, drug discovery, and clinical trial optimization.

It will provide 11 annual fellowships supporting graduate students working at the intersection of AI and health and offer educational programs through J-Clinic for Takeda employees to bolster individual and organizational learning in integrating AI and machine learning technologies into practical and applied solutions.

ON THE RECORD
"We are thrilled to create this collaboration with Takeda," said Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of MIT's School of Engineering, in a statement. "The MIT-Takeda Program will build a community dedicated to the next generation of AI and system-level breakthroughs that aim to advance healthcare around the globe."

"We share with MIT a vision where next-generation intelligent technologies can be better developed and applied across the entire health care ecosystem," added Anne Heatherington, senior vice president and head of Data Sciences Institute at Takeda. "Together, we are creating an incredible opportunity to support research, enhance the drug development process, and build a better future for patients."