17 May 2013 - 17 May 2013 - IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Belgian biopharmaceutical company UCB said today that they have made the first step in a project aiming to predict the best therapy for patients with epilepsy by applying cognitive computing to a large corpus of data.

IBM and UCB are creating the most comprehensive corpus of data on epilepsy in the healthcare industry and when completed, the project will allow providers to combine their own assessment with the platform's predictive analytics to determine if the individual approach will be successful.

UCB will collaborate with other healthcare companies to broaden the reach, while IBM will provide the cognitive computing technology, such as IBM Watson, and analytics technologies that apply to big data.

The project is aiming to deliver an interactive system that translates scientific literature and massive amounts of data into insights that will help healthcare providers consult patients at the point of care and inform them about their therapy decisions.

Epilepsy affects around 65 million people globally and is one of the most common diseases of the central nervous system.