{"slug":"biogen-advances-disease-therapies-through-cloud-based-ai-on-databricks","url":"https://findausecase.com/use-cases/biogen-advances-disease-therapies-through-cloud-based-ai-on-databricks","title":"Biogen advances disease therapies through cloud-based AI on Databricks","description":"Biogen migrated its on-premises genomics data infrastructure to Databricks for Genomics on AWS, using the UK Biobank's 500,000-participant dataset and machine learning models to identify genetic variants linked to human longevity and neurological disease, discovering two new drug targets for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.","company":"Biogen","industry":"Life Sciences","aiCapabilities":["Predictive Analytics"],"technology":["Databricks for Genomics","Delta Lake","AWS"],"deployment":"Public Cloud","problemStatement":"Insufficient storage capacity in Biogen's existing data center made collecting and analyzing genomics data at scale impossible, and their network bandwidth couldn't handle transferring so much information; in 2018 these issues led to a one-week outage of Biogen's high-performance compute cluster.","solutionApproach":"Biogen collaborated with DNAnexus and Databricks to migrate its on-premises data infrastructure into the AWS cloud using Databricks for Genomics, and with Delta Lake took a pipeline that previously required 2 weeks to process 700,000 variants and optimized it to annotate 2 million variants in approximately 15 minutes.","businessValue":"By combining the DNAnexus platform with Databricks for Genomics, Biogen was able to use UK Biobank data to identify genes containing protein-truncating variants that impact human longevity and neurological status, leading to the identification of two new drug targets and insights into neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.","evidence":{"band":"high"},"sourceUrl":"https://www.databricks.com/customers/biogen","dates":{"publishedAt":"2026-09-24T05:49:14.141Z","publishedAtSource":"pipeline","updatedAt":"2026-09-24T05:49:14.141Z"},"license":"Open for reading and citing with a link to https://findausecase.com/use-cases/biogen-advances-disease-therapies-through-cloud-based-ai-on-databricks. Bulk republication requires permission."}