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According to an internal audit, mismanagement of funds and the failure to involve staff IT experts led to the termination of an IBM Watson project at a University of Texas cancer center:
According to a blistering audit by the University of Texas System, the cancer center grossly mismanaged its splashy program with IBM, which started back in 2012. The program aimed to teach Watson how to treat cancer patients and match them to clinical trials. Watson initially met goals and impressed center doctors, but the project hit the rocks as MD Anderson officials snubbed their own IT experts, mishandled about $62 million in funding, and failed to follow basic procedures for overseeing contracts and invoices, the audit concludes.
IBM pulled support for the project back in September of last year. Watson is currently prohibited from being used on patients there, and the fate of MD Anderson's partnership with IBM is in question. MD Anderson is now seeking bids from other contractors who might take IBM's place. Meanwhile, a similar project that IBM started with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York around the same time frame has already wrapped up. It resulted in a commercial product that is currently making its way into hospitals around the world, including in [Jupiter, Florida].
[...] Lastly, auditors found that invoices were paid regardless of whether services were provided, but weren't consistently paid or paid in a timely way. Some fees were suspiciously set at rates just below the amounts that would trigger review and require approval by the Board of Regents. And, MD Anderson paid out money from donations that hadn't actually come through yet—leaving the project with an $11.59 million deficit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @09:52PM
Not for curing cancer, it's for keeping the cancer patients hopeful as they slowly decline and by cancer researchers there third yacht
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @11:59PM
That implies that we're anywhere near the point where there's a cure for cancers in general. What's more, this seems like a modified version of the prisoner's dilemma. Yes, it would technically be more profitable for them to futz around and get nothing accomplished, but then other people would get the money.
Ultimately, there's a more or less infinite supply of cells to contract cancer, so the point of not trying ones hardest to cure it is rather silly. We're at least a century or more away from a comprehensive cure for all forms of cancer.