Bayer Makes AI Deal to Search for Heart Drug Clues in U.K. Health Data

(Bloomberg) -- Bayer AG entered a two-year agreement to use artificial intelligence to hunt for heart treatments using Sensyne Health Plc's trove of U.K. health records.

Sensyne's shares rose as much as 7.3% in early London trading. Its partners, a group of National Health Service trusts, will receive 4% of all proceeds from the 5-million pound ($5.6 million) deal, the Oxford, England-based company said Wednesday in a statement.

Sensyne is collaborating with NHS divisions to put patient information into a database that companies and entrepreneurs can analyze to develop new products and treatment approaches that will benefit the agency's patients. The Bayer deal, focused on cardiovascular disease, is the first announced so far by the fledgling data company since it listed shares about a year ago.

“We set out expectations at our IPO to do a big deal within 24 months and it's nice to deliver it 12 months early,” Sensyne Chief Executive Officer Paul Drayson said in an interview. The company will continue to look for new partners, he said.

Heart disease, one of the world's leading killers, has been identified as an area of priority research, according to Drayson, the former U.K. science minister who founded Sensyne. It accounts for one in four premature deaths in the country, according to the NHS.

Bayer's scientists won't see the NHS data itself. Sensyne's system protects patient privacy by using records stripped of identifying information, and provides only the analyses to customers.

So far, Sensyne has signed up six of the NHS's 150 hospital divisions, known as trusts, representing about 3 million patients, with each trust receiving Sensyne shares worth about $3 million.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in London at jlauerman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, Marthe Fourcade

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