MD Anderson Benches IBM Watson In Setback For Artificial Intelligence In Medicine

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 5:24 AM
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] MD Anderson Benches IBM Watson In Setback For
Artificial Intelligence In Medicine
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>


MD Anderson Benches IBM Watson In Setback For Artificial Intelligence In
Medicine
By Matthew Herper
Feb 19 2017
<
https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2017/02/19/md-anderson-benches-ibm-watson-in-setback-for-artificial-intelligence-in-medicine/
>

It was one of those amazing “we’re living in the future” moments. In an
October 2013 press release, IBM declared that MD Anderson, the cancer
center that is part of the University of Texas, “is using the IBM Watson
cognitive computing system for its mission to eradicate cancer.”

Well, now that future is past. The partnership between IBM and one of the
world’s top cancer research institutions is falling apart. The project is
on hold, MD Anderson confirms, and has been since late last year. MD
Anderson is actively requesting bids from other contractors who might
replace IBM in future efforts. And a scathing report from auditors at the
University of Texas says the project cost MD Anderson more than $62 million
and yet did not meet its goals. The report, however, states: "Results
stated herein should not be interpreted as an opinion on the scientific
basis or functional capabilities of the system in its current state."

“When it was appropriate to do so, the project was placed on hold,” an MD
Anderson spokesperson says. “As a public institution, we decided to go out
to the marketplace for competitive bids to see where the industry has
progressed.”

The disclosure comes at an uncomfortable moment for IBM. Tomorrow, the
company’s chief executive, Ginni Rometty, will make a presentation to a
giant health information technology conference detailing the progress
Watson has made in health care, and announcing the launch of new products
for managing medical images and making sure hospitals deliver value for the
money, as well as new partnerships with healthcare systems. The end of the
MD Anderson collaboration looks bad.

But IBM defended the MD Anderson product, known as the Oncology Expert
Advisor or OEA. It says the OEA’s recommendations were accurate, agreeing
with experts 90% of the time. “The OEA R&D project was a success, and
likely could have been deployed had MD Anderson chosen to take it forward,”
says an IBM spokesperson.

Watson, IBM’s language-based computing project, gripped the world’s
imagination in 2011 when the supercomputer won an exhibition of the game
show Jeopardy!against the show’s two highest rated players. In March 2012,
IBM signed a deal with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York
to develop a commercial product that would use the same technology to
analyze the medical literature and help doctors choose treatments for
cancer patients.

MD Anderson, Memorial’s long-time rival, entered the fray after this
agreement was already in place. Lynda Chin, the former chair of the MD
Anderson Department of Genomic medicine and the wife of MD Anderson
president Ronald DePinho, set up a collaboration with IBM to develop a
separate project. Chin left MD Anderson for another job within the
University of Texas system in 2015.

In a strange twist, MD Anderson would pay for the whole thing, eventually
giving $39.2 million to IBM and $21.2 million to PricewaterhouseCoopers,
which was hired to create a business plan around the product. According to
the Washington Post, at least $50 million of the money came from Low Taek
Jho, a flamboyant Malaysian financier whose business dealings are
reportedly now under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Usually, companies pay research centers to do research on their products;
in this case, MD Anderson paid for the privilege, although it would have
apparently also owned the product. This was a “very unusual business
arrangement,” says Vinay Prasad, an oncologist at Oregon Health & Science
University.

[snip]

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