Few business processes rival the intricacies of developing a new prescription drug. Life sciences companies must balance large investments of time and capital—an average of 10 years and $2.6 billion—to develop a treatment that only has about a 10 percent chance to ever be approved for use. And, when adding the regulatory and political pressures, it can seem like an impossible undertaking.

Life sciences firms are, of course, scientific in their approaches, and they are relentless in finding new ways to increase efficiencies—starting with applying new, digital technologies to traditional processes. In fact, as part of an industry push to improve both patient outcomes and their bottom lines, pharma companies are increasingly turning to cloud platforms for their R&D efforts, patient recruitment and more.

That’s why we’re excited today to announce that QuintilesIMS—a leading provider of information, technology services and contract research to the life sciences industry—has forged an alliance with Salesforce to offer life sciences companies new capabilities to bring treatments from molecule to market, faster and more efficiently than ever before.

QuintilesIMS’ partnership with Salesforce offers an inspiring view at the future of treatment development. By building on the Salesforce Intelligent Customer Success Platform, QuintilesIMS will deliver solutions with built-in cloud, mobile, social and artificial intelligence capabilities. Its collaboration with Salesforce is at the core of the company’s strategy of building solutions on a foundation of intelligent, industry-standard platforms.

QuintilesIMS will initially develop apps for patient recruitment, managing clinical trials, marketing and more. Longer-term, QuintilesIMS will work with Salesforce on new frontiers in healthcare, such as digital health, precision medicine and patient engagement, by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies as part of the Salesforce Platform.

We’re thrilled to see how the alliance will transform a critically important part of the life sciences industry, and we look forward to sharing future updates as our mutual customers discover success. To read more about the alliance, click here.