The Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit alliance that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, released the latest Unified Data Model (UDM) file format, Version 6, supported by funding from Biovia, Elsevier, GSK, Novartis, and Roche (recently joined by BMS). V6 provides a foundation for the collection and exchange of reaction data and empowers the community to move forward with its adoption. The release is built on standard vocabularies for units of measure and analytical methods, allowing the systems to be interoperable. As increased adoption of AI and ML in R&D continues, such industry-wide data standards are essential in the move towards the digitally driven Lab of the Future (LoTF).
 
“The UDM is exactly the type of essential project the Pistoia Alliance was formed to work on – it enables internal and external collaboration, and ultimately helps to accelerate innovation and discovery,” commented Dr Steve Arlington, President of The Pistoia Alliance. “Following this latest update, the project is now shifting into a support phase to help companies adopt the UDM model. Most recently we have secured additional funding from BMS to allow us to continue the project to benefit users, and we are pleased to welcome Cynthia Beno from BMS to our steering committee. We are also currently looking for additional funding in order to develop a toolkit which would bring together methods, techniques and literature to support the adoption of the UDM. If any companies would like to be involved, we encourage you to get in touch.”
 
The latest update of the UDM looks to primarily improve the semantics and validation of data. This is important in R&D when acronyms and words can be interchanged. Without alignment on terms and data models, great opportunities to see trends or wider patterns are missed. Standardized harmonization of data is especially important as we are seeing increased adoption of AI, and machine and deep learning, which are reliant on high quality data to improve outcomes and predictions. To continue to improve alignment in the future, the Alliance is looking to work more closely with the Allotrope Foundation, to ensure the two systems are complementary and compatible.