Gilead Sciences, Inc. and Verily Life Sciences LLC announced a scientific collaboration to identify and better understand the immunological basis of three common and serious inflammatory diseases.

Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops and commercializes innovative therapeutics in areas of unmet medical need, has agreed on a scientific collaboration with Verily Life Sciences LLC, to identify and better understand the immunological basis of rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and lupus-related diseases.

This is an extensive attempt to interrogate the activity of specific subtypes of immune cells to better understand disease signatures and treatment response, and could be a promising guide for future drug discovery and development with the main goal of enhancing the outcomes for people living with these diseases.

“Inflammatory diseases are complex and heterogeneous, and despite treatment advances, most patients experience neither deep nor long-lasting remissions,” noted John McHutchison, MD, Chief Scientific Officer, Head of Research and Development, Gilead. “We are excited to be collaborating with the scientists at Verily to accelerate our understanding of these common and serious inflammatory diseases. We hope to ultimately improve patient outcomes using this cutting-edge technology to identify molecular disease pathways that would otherwise remain undetected.”

Through the collaboration, Gilead will provide clinical data and thousands of immune cell samples from participants before, during and after administration of novel drugs in the company’s ongoing Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical studies. Jessica Mega, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Verily, added: “This collaboration with Gilead is an incredible opportunity to learn much more about these immune-mediated conditions than ever before, and to hone in on potential paths to deliver more precise medicine to patients.”