R&D

Driving innovation forward: ��ֳ� unveils new R&D facility

Vandenbruaene Nathalie — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 09:52:39 +0000

Driving innovation forward: ��ֳ� unveils new R&D facility

Luc Uylenbroeck, External Innovation and Operations

Vandenbruaene … Mon 10/02/2025 - 10:52

I am thrilled to announce the start of the construction of a state-of-the-art research & development (R&D) facility at our Braine-l’Alleud Campus. The new facility, known as the Arkelia project is a milestone of our long-term strategy to push the boundaries of science and deliver life-changing solutions for people living with severe diseases worldwide.

Designed to connect seamlessly with the company’s gene therapy center and key neurology research infrastructure, Arkelia will foster collaboration, accelerate advancements in research and development, and drive innovation in manufacturing. With a research focus on neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, epilepsy, and early-stage development, this facility will strengthen ��ֳ�’s global leadership in pioneering solutions for patients.

Accommodating more than 170 scientists, the facility is built to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration while leveraging cutting-edge technology and advanced scientific tools to enhance R&D capabilities. More than just a workspace, it will serve as a dynamic ecosystem that fosters scientific creativity and accelerates the development of transformative therapies.

Crucially, Arkelia underscores ��ֳ�’s unwavering commitment to sustainability. Designed to the highest eco-standards, the facility will incorporate energy-efficient systems, renewable energy sources, and sustainable materials to minimize its environmental footprint. By integrating green technologies, we are ensuring that scientific advancement goes hand in hand with environmental responsibility.

This initiative significantly contributes to the growth strategy of the Braine-l'Alleud Campus, reinforcing collaboration between research, development, manufacturing, and supply teams. The facility’s flexible and forward-thinking design will align critical phases of innovation, ensuring accelerated progress while prioritizing sustainability.

Set to become fully operational by 2028, Arkelia marks a significant milestone in ��ֳ�’s sustainable growth journey. It reflects our ongoing dedication to delivering high-impact solutions while upholding our responsibility to the planet.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to drive innovation forward at ��ֳ�.

innovation

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Why Don’t All Patients Respond to Treatment?

Andrea_Puletto — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 11:35:07 +0000

Why Don’t All Patients Respond to Treatment?

Scott Fleming, Global Communications & Company Reputation

Andrea_Puletto Tue 26/03/2024 - 12:35

Proud to be one of the partners in King’s College London’s creation of a “Smart Therapeutic Trials Development Hub”. Awarded £10 million from Research England and supported with investment from industry and charities, the scientists at King’s aim to untangle the complex web of factors that influence treatment outcomes and answer the question why some patients remain unresponsive to various therapies.

Recent advances in the medical and scientific world have been nothing less than transformative. This has allowed us to make enormous strides in treating diseases, but there is a lack of understanding about the biological reason why some patients don’t respond to therapy. The answer likely lies entwined within genetics, environmental factors, disease severity, lifestyle choices, and ethnicity.

The scientists at King's College’s Smart Trials Development Hub aim to untangle this complex web of factors that influence treatment outcomes. Leveraging clinical, academic, and pharmaceutical expertise, the facility will employ the latest experimental data and cutting-edge AI techniques to create a detailed picture of each patient's unique disease traits.

The integration of patient tissue analysis, clinical data, and lab-generated 'organoids' (small-scale representations of their tissue) will give birth to 'digital biological twins'. These digital twins will help the scientists better understand and treat each patient's disease according to their unique biological makeup, helping to propel the concept of personalized medicine forward.

In the end, the goal is simple yet profound - to make medicines work for everyone because everyone deserves the chance to live their healthiest life. This is just the beginning, and we can't wait to see all the lives this hub will impact in the years to come.

Find out more here: £10million awarded to make medicines work for everyone - King's College London (kcl.ac.uk)

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innovation R&D King’s College London

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Cultivating a patient-centered approach to epilepsy research

Chiara Vona — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 10:04:42 +0000

Cultivating a patient-centered approach to epilepsy research

Andrea Wilkinson, Global Patient Engagement, Global Epilepsy & Rare Syndromes

Chiara Vona Tue 28/11/2023 - 11:04

For more than three decades, we’ve been committed to people living with epilepsy and their families, providing a portfolio of innovative patient centered solutions for those in need.

Any research and treatment development journey at ��ֳ� starts with identifying the patients’ unmet needs. Patients or people living with an epilepsy diagnosis, and their caregivers, are the true experts of their condition and it is their narratives that shape our scientific journey.

So, before we go into any clinical trial, we make sure we have an in-depth understanding of the persons experience of living with the disease to better understand how a medicine is going to help the patients and their families.

In the evolving landscape of epilepsy research, a profound shift is underway at ��ֳ�. We are delving even deeper into the multi-faceted experiences of people living with a range epilepsies and rare syndromes. We also aspire, in epilepsy, to bring disease modifying medications to improve patients’ lives with potential for curative therapies.

We are looking beyond the seizures at the other co-morbidities that add to the burden of disease to explore the holistic impact of certain medications on the daily lives of people living with epilepsy. We recognize the uniqueness of each epilepsy journey, acknowledging that no two experiences are identical, and see this as a challenge that we will overcome together with the patient communities.

Targeting the true unmet needs of those dealing with seizures can be challenging. For starters, there are different racial, ethnic, age groups, and socioeconomic backgrounds that need to be factored into the patient experience. As part of our research, we focus on areas of unmet need, in the hope to find inclusive representation of refractory patients and those living with rare syndromes. As we approach medicines in development and commercialization, we work to meet the needs of the varying, low-prevalence patient populations.

For instance, during our post-trial commercialization work, we secured insights from varying ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, including single and married caregivers to better understand logistical challenges of daily life. To bridge the gap even further, we collaborate with patient advocacy organizations to be as inclusive as possible. However, we acknowledge there’s a natural selection of advocates who have the bandwidth to engage with patient organizations; they tend to be in a higher socio-demographic bracket, which can bias our research.

To combat this, we must check our own unconscious bias and diversify who and where we conduct our research. We are making a conscious effort to ensure these groups are not overlooked by bringing services and accessible information to hard-to-reach communities. A small step begins with ensuring the language we use is universally understood. Patient and caregiver facing materials that ��ֳ� produces for the patient and caregiver community need to be understood by an eight-year-old. We want to provide information to as many people as possible, regardless of their education, age, race, and socioeconomic background.

It is imperative for patients and caregivers to influence every aspect of the development and post-market access of our new treatments. The patient's voice is changing the way medicines are being created and it's incredibly inspiring to witness and be part of this at ��ֳ�.

innovation

epilepsy R&D Patients

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Transformative Partnerships: ��ֳ�'s Patient-Centric Approach to Advancing Healthcare

Chiara Vona — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 08:52:46 +0000

Transformative Partnerships: ��ֳ�'s Patient-Centric Approach to Advancing Healthcare

Mitch Herndon, Clinical study patient engagement

Chiara Vona Wed 27/09/2023 - 10:52

We hear a lot in the pharmaceutical industry about collaborations and partnerships that are formed to drive innovation and breakthroughs. Big name partnerships are never far from the front pages, but successful partnerships come in all shapes and sizes.

At ��ֳ�, there’s one form of partnership that we’ve found to be more transformative than any other and that’s the partnership with patients. To help bring innovation to our science, we work hard to build a trusted partnership with patients. We take the time to listen and learn from patients as this provides us with insights on the personal impact of their condition. Insights that don’t come from trial data or the test tube.

Patient-Centered Insights: The Art of Listening

The art of listening goes beyond just hearing words; it involves active engagement with the speaker. True listening grants us a deeper understanding and appreciation of others' perspectives and emotions. Through empathetic listening, we can better support and show compassion.

Each person holds a unique experience and knowledge, and by attentively listening, we gain valuable insights that enrich our own understanding. The act of genuine listening allows us to learn from other’s successes, failures, and diverse experiences, expanding our knowledge beyond what we could achieve individually.

Cultivating Patient-Centricity: ��ֳ�'s Purpose-Driven Research and Development

It’s an empowering way to work. Often, in research and development, where innovations are sometimes decades in the making, you can feel extracted from the focus of your research efforts. For us, the constant feedback loop from patients allows innovation in science to thrive. It’s why we come to work: to listen, to learn, and to make a real difference to the lives of patients suffering from severe diseases, every day.

To learn more about how innovation drives everything we do visit Innovation is | ��ֳ�

innovation

Patients innovation science R&D

Comment:

Posted by canadian pharm…, 24 October 2023

This page definitely has all the information I needed about this subject and didn't know who to ask.

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Human centred clinical trials driving increased participation

Chiara Vona — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 12:23:58 +0000

Human centred clinical trials driving increased participation

Lewis Millen, Global Clinical Science & Operations

Chiara Vona Wed 19/04/2023 - 14:23

At ��ֳ�, patients are at the center of everything we do. With that comes an understanding that patients are not only patients but are first and foremost human beings. That is why innovation, to me, means human centric health, and delivering human centred clinical trials as part of people’s health journey.

When it comes to clinical trials our vision is to educate, empower and enable all patients to actively participate. Traditionally, clinical trials were conducted in a clinical setting in 100% of cases. That is all changing, with a move towards hybrid clinical trials split between the clinic and the home, where possible, and putting human needs at the center of our clinical trials.

Many of the patients that we serve have complex conditions and our aim is to make clinical trial participation as easy as possible, enabling participants to continue with their day-to-day lives with minimal disruption. By combining participant-centred design with innovative technologies, we seek to increase flexibility and optionality. For example, on those days where patients need more flexibility, we endeavour to offer a home option.

For our solutions to be meaningful to each patient’s needs we must ensure that clinical trials are representative of the diverse communities that we serve, and cater to a diverse array of situations that are unique to each patient. That is why we are striving for optionality at every stage of drug development through to treatment. The increase in choice can expand the patient footprint throughout the clinical trial process and help empower more people from diverse communities, a diverse range of ages, a diversity of situations, and remote locations to participate in trials.

To make clinical trials a part of a human centric health journey, we must deliver a diverse set of options that enable all to participate.. To that end we are leveraging innovative technology to pilot and deploy remote patient-centric sampling and data capture solutions, such as PK blood sampling, non-invasive skin biopsies and imaging.

Innovative technological solutions are aiding the expansion of trials from the clinic into the home and placing patients’ needs at the heart of drug discovery to ensure that ��ֳ� solutions reach all communities and serve diverse human needs.

Innovation is at the center of everything our R&D colleagues do at ��ֳ�, but how we innovate is as unique as our employees. For this reason, we asked our researchers to share with you what innovation means to them. So, take a look at what they think innovation is on our dedicated ‘innovation is’ website here.

innovation

innovation R&D science clinical studies

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Discovery to design to delivery: how patients are helping us innovate

Vanco Vlastimil (��ֳ� S.A.) — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 09:44:16 +0000

Discovery to design to delivery: how patients are helping us innovate

Kate Trenam, Early Patient Engagement

Vanco Vlastimi… Wed 05/04/2023 - 11:44

Discovering and developing new medicines is a key part of what we do here at ��ֳ�. But we believe that a new medicine is only truly valuable and innovative if it’s meaningful to patients. It has to be a solution that patients really want, and which makes a genuine difference to their lives.

The creation of meaningful medicines at ��ֳ� doesn’t happen by luck or by chance, it happens because we work hard to implement partnerships with patients at all stages of the drug development process.

There is growing evidence that patients’ contributions during the very early stages of drug development can have a positive impact on research into new drugs. Because at this stage researchers are gaining an understanding of patient communities and their unmet needs, patient-friendly research approaches and identifying meaningful outcome measures for patients. Who better to inform these processes than the patients themselves?

At ��ֳ� we have developed a new end-to-end framework designed to ensure that patients and key stakeholders can provide input as early as possible into our research and development programs, as well as the entire drug lifecycle. At the clinical trial stage, we co-create protocols with patients / patient advocacy groups to help us assess protocol complexity and minimize the burden on patients.

Today, approximately 46% of our trials also have a Decentralized Clinical Trials (DCT) patient-centric component. DCTs help to make our clinical trials more accessible and easier to participate in for patients who may not be able to easily access a clinical trial in person, and they can help us to reach patients living in under-represented geographies.

In the area of Parkinson’s, we have joined forces with Parkinson’s UK, and the Parkinson's Foundation in the U.S., to establish a Patient Engagement Council for Parkinson’s Research (PECPR). The aim of the council is to ensure that patient insights are central to the overall strategy and activities across ��ֳ�’s Parkinson’s Disease research and early clinical development program. Through this collaborative partnership, the council aims to embed patient involvement in the earliest stages and throughout each step of ��ֳ�’s Parkinson’s drug development program.

At ��ֳ� we celebrate the fact that patients are increasingly active and empowered when it comes to decisions about their healthcare – they are no longer ‘customers’, but more ‘co-creators’ in the R&D process. We celebrate it because we hope that by closing the gap between scientists and patients, we can discover new ways to target the drivers of disease.

To learn more about how innovation drives everything we do visit Innovation is | ��ֳ�

innovation

Innovators Patients Patient engagement Drug development R&D Clinical trials

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Harnessing the power of digital technology to drive innovation

Vanco Vlastimil (��ֳ� S.A.) — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 14:17:13 +0000

Harnessing the power of digital technology to drive innovation

Wang Yuan, Data and Translational Sciences

Vanco Vlastimi… Mon 27/02/2023 - 15:17

Here at ��ֳ�, we see ‘innovation’ as inventing something new and useful. And in no field is that more relevant than in that of medicine – something ‘new’ could be a disease modifying medicine, and something ‘useful’ could be the novel way in which we discover it.

Innovative digital technology is undoubtedly transforming how we treat and manage disease. This is in large part down to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data generation, processing and computing speeds, which make the impossible, possible. For example, AI can help describe the structural connections between atoms and molecules and optimize desirable properties for drugs. We can now sequence the hundreds of amino acids in each and every protein. Then, informed by AI, we can edit antibody sequences to be more stable and effective against disease-causing proteins. AI can also interpret the health of individual cells and - using this information - we can gain a deeper understanding of disease biology and pathology, and how drugs may be able to reverse it.

At the clinical trials stage, advanced AI can help to keep track of treatment schedules and trial recruitment, help to make trials easier to access for patients, and make the data easier to access for physicians. This is all a work in progress, we are constantly ‘training’ and advancing the capabilities of our AI models, with each new discovery and input of data, AI is learning and getting more efficient.

But the value of AI for patients, now and in the future, is undeniable –the more efficient use of genetic data, and the modelling of disease pathways and gene sequences all help us to identify exactly what the patient needs so that we can works towards individualise treatment. It’s also removing the barriers imposed by ethnicity or geography, because we now have access to, and an understanding of, much larger data sets.

AI shows us not only the power of digital technology but also the power of collaboration – our chemists and biologists are working side by side and trusting our data scientists to empower scientific research.

AI is not without its challenges of course – it is difficult to define a ‘gold standard’ for the pharma domain, particularly given the rate of progress, so there is a test-and-learn approach which must be adopted when analysing and revaluating our AI models. Attention must be paid to any bias embedded in AI frameworks, making sure that they are generated with comprehensive and 'clean' data.

Ultimately though, we believe that innovations like AI will help enable new discoveries and accelerate drug development, all for the benefit of people suffering from disease. That’s why innovation is our driving force at ��ֳ�. We're filled with anticipation about what lies ahead!

Innovation is at the centre of everything our R&D colleagues do at ��ֳ�, but how we innovate is as unique as our employees. For this reason, we asked our researchers to share with you what innovation means to them. So, take a look at what they think innovation is on our dedicated ‘innovation is’ website here.

innovation

Innovators Our Science AI R&D Innovation

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Culture is critical when creating an environment where innovation thrives

Chiara Vona — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 10:06:21 +0000

Culture is critical when creating an environment where innovation thrives

Alistair Henry, Discovery Science

Chiara Vona Fri 18/11/2022 - 11:06

The 18th century saw the birth of modern medicine as we know it. Vaccination, x-rays and ‘germ theory’ emerged as breakthroughs that transformed standard of care for patients. But after centuries of scientific thought being constrained by myth and superstition, innovation in science flourished in the 1800s; scientists embraced news ways of thinking to progress theories beyond traditional frameworks. It was this shift in thinking and culture that helped bring life-altering medicines to the forefront.

Supported by new waves of technological advances, the rate of progress in recent years has been nothing short of astounding. We can now use artificial intelligence to spot the presence of “silent” or asymptomatic fractures in the spine, or malignant tumours invisible to the naked eye. We can even navigate our own healthcare journeys from our smartphones.

At ��ֳ�, we recognize that to provide new breakthroughs in healthcare, our people cannot be constrained by existing practices; to really innovate, you need to foster a culture that embraces diversity of thought, technology and dynamic ways of working. In essence, creating an environment to explore what we haven’t discovered yet, whether that’s through increasing partnerships across disciplines to widen our scope of thinking, or integrating computational methods into traditional drug discovery approaches. But, most importantly, we need to give people the space to fail and learn from mistakes to truly break the boundaries of science.

I’m lucky to work with a team of dedicated, passionate individuals who believe there are no limits to what can be discovered in R&D, and who work in an environment which encourages that ambition. ��ֳ� works hard to support innovation and inspiration by creating a space where our scientists can explore new questions and methods to find ground-breaking solutions, for patients who are at the heart of everything we do in R&D.

We have a clear view of where we’re going but remain open to different ways of getting there, with an innovation culture behind us, which makes for a very exciting journey.

To learn more about ��ֳ�’s incredible innovation culture, visit our dedicated innovation page here.

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innovation Our Science culture R&D

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Innovative tech at the heart of ��ֳ�

Vanco Vlastimil (��ֳ� S.A.) — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 07:14:29 +0000

Innovative tech at the heart of ��ֳ�

Lauren Drowley, Element Genomics

Vanco Vlastimi… Thu 20/10/2022 - 09:14

Today ��ֳ� is marking World CRISPR Day. CRISPR, short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, is a technology that can be used to edit genes and its helping to change the face of drug discovery as a versatile tool to investigate and engineer the genome.

Scientists first discovered CRISPR in E. coli in the 1980s. They found that when E. coli survives attack from a virus, it incorporates some of the viral DNA into its own genetic code. In this way if attacked again by a virus with the same genetic code, complementary RNA binds to it and instructs CRISPR-associated enzymes, or “Cas” enzymes, to attack and neutralise the viral threat. It was later discovered, by Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, that Cas enzymes - specifically Cas9 can be reprogrammed in mammalian cells to cut nearly any part of the genome, allowing easier and more precise gene editing.

Interest in the CRISPR/Cas system initially focused on its potential for treating diseases with a genetic basis, to actually ‘fix’ the mutated gene. But CRISPR/Cas has an important part to play in drug discovery – accelerating many stages of the drug discovery process. By using the CRISPR/Cas system scientists can inhibit or activate genes to determine disease causing pathways and so in turn identify potential drugs targets. In addition, using CRISPR/Cas it’s possible to create cellular and animal models that precisely mimic diseases, and these models can be used to better understand diseases as well as better predict the safety and efficacy of drugs.

At ��ֳ� one of our strengths is that we’re always hungry to use the right technology. We continuously monitor for new and disruptive technologies that can help us make better and faster decisions. So, it should be no surprise that at the core of ��ֳ�’s Element Genomics team is a suite of technologies we use to improve understanding of genome structure and function such as CRISPR/Cas editing. Typically, scientists will use CRISPR/Cas9 editing to make specific, permanent edits to a genome by cutting the DNA. But in addition to permanently changing the DNA sequence, we have the ability to alter how genes are regulated, allowing our Element Genomics team to study how genes and pathways of interest interact by turning the targeted sections of the genome on or off.

Right now, this is an incredibly exciting time for science. Advancements in knowledge, understanding and technology is driving a rapid change in how we approach drug discovery and development, and it’s exciting to be involved in this process. If you want to work for a company that is striving to shape the future of modern medicine, then look at our current R&D vacancies.

innovation

CRISPR Element Genomics DNA CRISPR/Cas R&D

Comment:

Posted by David Dranow, 14 November 2022

Happy World CRISPR Day! Thank you, Lauren, for sharing with us the history of CRISPR and explaining the impact it has on drug discovery. It's amazing to see how far this technology has come in our field. Truly powerful stuff.

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We embrace collaboration

Vanco Vlastimil (��ֳ� S.A.) — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 10:14:37 +0000

We embrace collaboration

Martin Citron, Neurology Early Solutions

Vanco Vlastimi… Fri 14/10/2022 - 12:14

For over 30 years ��ֳ� has worked in the field of epilepsy and our commitment has never been stronger. We are working towards a future where we can impact the underlying causes of certain epilepsies and change the course of disease. But such innovation isn’t easy, so we work hard at creating the right surroundings and culture that nurtures and fosters innovation. We will monitor for new disruptive technologies, expand our therapeutic modality platforms, and seek out partners that can help us pioneer new approaches to drug discovery.

So, we are pleased with the recent news that ��ֳ� entered a drug discovery collaboration with GliaPharm. Co-founded by Prof. Pierre Magistretti, GliaPharm develops treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders. Their therapeutic approach is to target glial cells, the “support cells” of neurons, and to develop new drugs that target glia-mediated pathways as agents for neuroprotection and maintenance of cognitive functions. Under the collaboration, GliaPharm will use their proprietary GliaX technology platform to validate a series of therapeutic targets that we believe will enhance ��ֳ�'s efforts in discovering drugs for epilepsy.

When you look at collaborations like this and the connectivity we have between our people, disciplines and technology, we think it’s a powerful R&D mix that we hope will enable us to develop solutions that move from symptomatic relief to those that could address the underlying causes of certain epilepsies.

So if you want to join a connected team who are in the pursuit of continuous innating then take a look at our R&D vacancies here.

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R&D Drug discovery epilepsy GliaPharm collaboration

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R&D

Driving innovation forward: ��ֳ� unveils new R&D facility

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Why Don’t All Patients Respond to Treatment?

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Cultivating a patient-centered approach to epilepsy research

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Transformative Partnerships: ��ֳ�'s Patient-Centric Approach to Advancing Healthcare

Patient-Centered Insights: The Art of Listening

Cultivating Patient-Centricity: ��ֳ�'s Purpose-Driven Research and Development

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Human centred clinical trials driving increased participation

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Discovery to design to delivery: how patients are helping us innovate

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Harnessing the power of digital technology to drive innovation

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Culture is critical when creating an environment where innovation thrives

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Innovative tech at the heart of ��ֳ�

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We embrace collaboration

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Driving innovation forward: ������ֳ� unveils new R&D facility

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Why Don’t All Patients Respond to Treatment?

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Cultivating a patient-centered approach to epilepsy research

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Transformative Partnerships: ������ֳ�'s Patient-Centric Approach to Advancing Healthcare

Patient-Centered Insights: The Art of Listening

Cultivating Patient-Centricity: ������ֳ�'s Purpose-Driven Research and Development

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Human centred clinical trials driving increased participation

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Discovery to design to delivery: how patients are helping us innovate

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Harnessing the power of digital technology to drive innovation

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Culture is critical when creating an environment where innovation thrives

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Innovative tech at the heart of ������ֳ�

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We embrace collaboration

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Driving innovation forward: ��ֳ� unveils new R&D facility

Transformative Partnerships: ��ֳ�'s Patient-Centric Approach to Advancing Healthcare

Cultivating Patient-Centricity: ��ֳ�'s Purpose-Driven Research and Development

Innovative tech at the heart of ��ֳ�