The companies will explore possibilities for improved diabetes care via insights from real-time, real world evidence of Novo Nordisk diabetes treatments and devices. By harnessing the potential of the Watson Health Cloud, Novo Nordisk aims to further advance its offerings to people living with diabetes and their healthcare professionals.

Commenting on the agreement, Jakob Riis, executive vice president, Novo Nordisk said: 2Working with ambitious partners like IBM Watson Health helps us explore the opportunities presented by an increasingly digitalised healthcare system. We aim to leverage our combined capabilities to improve the lives of people with diabetes by making the management of the condition more simple, effective and measurable."

IBM Watson is the first commercially available cognitive computing platform and represents a new era of computing. The platform, delivered through the cloud, processes vast amounts of big data to uncover patterns and insights, understands complex questions posed in natural language, proposes evidence-based answers, and learns from each interaction. The Watson Health Cloud is a development platform for health and wellness solutions.

"IBM is excited to work with Novo Nordisk, a global leader in diabetes, to help the company create new e-health solutions on the Watson Health Cloud - accessing cognitive computing to help personalise care," said Deborah DiSanzo, general manager of IBM Watson Health.

About Diabetes
The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates that 415 million people have diabetes today - a figure that IDF estimates could rise to 642 million by 2040. Complications from poorly managed diabetes include cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, nerve damage, and blindness. Diabetes and its complications account for 12% of global health expenditure ($673 billion US dollars).(1)

About Novo Nordisk
Novo Nordisk is a global healthcare company with more than 90 years of innovation and leadership in diabetes care. This heritage has given us experience and capabilities that also enable us to help people defeat other serious chronic conditions: haemophilia, growth disorders and obesity. Headquartered in Denmark, Novo Nordisk employs approximately 40,300 people in 75 countries and markets its products in more than 180 countries.

About IBM Watson Health
In April 2015, IBM launched IBM Watson Health and the Watson Health Cloud platform. The new unit will help improve the ability of doctors, researchers and insurers to innovate by surfacing insights from the massive amount of personal health data being created and shared daily. The Watson Health Cloud allows this information to be de-identified, shared and combined with a dynamic and constantly growing aggregated set of data such as clinical, research and social health data.

1. International Diabetes Federation, IDF Atlas, 7th edition, 2015.