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Accenture Brings Open Partner Ecosystem for Drug Discovery

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Accenture plc (ACN - Free Report) has modeled an open partner ecosystem, aimed at helping independent software vendors (ISVs) and life sciences companies collaborate to speed up and enhance drug discovery.

The ecosystem is an integral part of the cloud-based informatics research platform, which is being developed by Accenture in collaboration with Merck (MRK - Free Report) on Amazon’s (AMZN - Free Report) Amazon Web Services (“AWS”). The platform enables scientific research-based organizations in the life sciences industry to quickly access, aggregate and analyze research data from multiple applications. It facilitates easier collaboration across the R&D enterprise, including external partners.

The new ecosystem will enable ISVs leverage the platform’s use of open, industry-standard-based application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate technology components, applications and content into the platform.

As a result, life sciences companies will be able to provide researchers access to innovative capabilities such as small-molecule and biological-entity registration, biological assay data capture, genomics data analysis, image storage and analysis and artificial intelligence.

In the past year, shares of Accenture have gained 7% compared with the 1.7% rise of the Zacks S&P 500 composite.

 

To Conclude

We believe that the latest move will help Accenture boost its Products segment as it comprises the Life Sciences industry group, which serves pharmaceutical, medical technology and biotechnology companies. Performance of this segment was particularly strong in the last reported quarter, with revenues increasing 12% on a year-over-year basis.

Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

Accenture currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

A better-ranked stock in the broader Zacks Business Services sector is WEX Inc. (WEX - Free Report) , carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The long-term expected EPS (three to five years) growth rates for WEX is 15%.

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