AstraZeneca and Oracle said Oct. 20 they had signed a nonbinding agreement to explore whether artificial intelligence and routine health data can support care teams and clinical-trial recruitment in Abu Dhabi.
The initial effort, with UAE health care company M42, would focus on uncontrolled hypertension. The proposed program would test AI-enabled workflows intended to help care teams identify patients whose blood pressure remains high, support guideline-directed care and find possible participants for selected trials. M42 said qualified professionals would review potential matches; researchers would contact or enroll patients only under approved study rules and with documented consent.
M42 cited an estimate that hypertension affects 35% of people in the UAE. Its announcement did not specify when the estimate was measured.
The broader collaboration could also examine earlier diagnosis, drug-safety monitoring and the use of evidence from routine care throughout a medicine’s lifecycle. AstraZeneca said potential work could cover oncology; cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases; respiratory and immunology; and rare diseases, across the United States, the Middle East and Europe.
Oracle described patient recruitment as a major obstacle in clinical trials. Reuters reported that enrollment delays can extend study timelines and increase development costs. The companies said the collaboration is intended to help clinicians identify patients sooner and expand access to trial opportunities; they have reported no measured benefits from the proposed work.
AstraZeneca said the work would use deidentified real-world data and that it would not receive information identifying patients. The company said it would assess projects individually and require the applicable approvals and protections before work begins.
The companies disclosed no financial terms. Oracle said the partners plan to establish shared governance, reusable technical components and measures for assessing results and whether successful approaches can be extended to other diseases and regions. No timetable was announced for those steps.
