{"id":577466,"date":"2025-04-08T13:03:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T11:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devoteam.com\/success-story\/c4xd-aws\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T14:25:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T12:25:24","slug":"c4xd-aws","status":"publish","type":"success-story","link":"https:\/\/devoteam.info\/lu\/success-story\/c4xd-aws\/","title":{"rendered":"C4XD Builds Future-Ready Platform for Advanced Drug Discovery on AWS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The snapshot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


13 weeks to develop modern AWS architecture <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


75% reduction in data storage costs<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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3<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


13 TB of data migrated<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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4<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n



300 hours for complete data migration with no downtime<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

About C4XD<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

C4XD<\/a> is a UK-based drug discovery company that combines scientific expertise with advanced technologies to research and develop new candidates for small-molecule drugs that target immune-inflammation diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Founded in 2008, it began as a spinout from the University of Manchester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge: New Research Strategy Brings Need for Updated Cloud Platform<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Using a unique combination of scientific expertise and data analysis, C4XD specialises in researching and developing small-molecule drugs to treat immune-inflammatory diseases. These pharmaceuticals have low molecular weights that can easily enter human cells and act on other molecules that contribute to disease. C4XD recently changed its research strategy to use precise analyses of large volumes of genetic data to target patients most likely to respond to different kinds of drugs for different diseases.<\/strong> And it aimed to build a new platform called PatientSeek to support that approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To enable that new strategy, C4XD needed to update the platform that it had built on AWS<\/a><\/strong>. It had adopted that platform after it migrated from its on-premises systems several years earlier, but it had not optimised its infrastructure to make the most of the cloud-native capabilities on AWS. As a result, it couldn\u2019t easily scale compute resources to meet changing needs and had to pay for some services even when it wasn\u2019t using them. It had recognised for several years that it needed to upgrade its infrastructure, but worried that such a project would be too difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur previous platform just had a lot of outdated solutions, and a very fragile and complex infrastructure,\u201d says Neil Humphryes-Kirilov, associate director of human genomics at C4XD, adding that the platform would require rebuilding from the ground up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cDevoteam came in and said, \u2018This is what we need to do.\u2019 They got right to the core of the issues.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Neil Humphryes-Kirilov, Associate Director of Genomics,
C4XD<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The solution: Rapid Development, Frequent Fine-Tuning Addresses Multiple Needs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Humphryes-Kirilov\u2019s team had contacted Ubertas on a recommendation from a software developer at C4XD who had worked with the consultancy on an earlier successful project. Ubertas, since acquired by Devoteam<\/a>, is a UK-based firm that specialises in cloud migration and modernisation on AWS. <\/strong>It quickly understood what C4XD needed to achieve its goals. \u201cIt was always this enormous task that nobody could do,\u201d says Humphryes-Kirilov. \u201cIt was going to be too complicated. And then Ubertas came in and said, \u2018This is what we need to do.\u2019 They got right to the core of the issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before starting any development work, Ubertas organised a series of workshops over 6 weeks to clarify C4XD\u2019s needs and goals. These workshops, which involved the entire genomics team, covered everything from compute and storage needs to how users would interact with the new platform. Even after the workshops were completed and development began on the new infrastructure on AWS, Ubertas consulted the genomics team frequently to make sure the new platform would operate as expected. And it worked to address unexpected quirks in the platform\u2019s behavior, such as problems that arose when upper-case letters were used when requesting specific compute resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ubertas also incorporated some of the recommendations it had come up with during a previous AWS Well-Architected<\/a> review <\/strong>it had conducted for C4XD. One of the areas where Ubertas saw the greatest room for improvement was in C4XD\u2019s use of data storage. \u201cThe majority of their bill was spent on storage that was just sitting there and really doing nothing,\u201d says Ross Purdon, head of modernisation at Ubertas. The solution was to move most of C4XD\u2019s data\u2014including about 5 TB of data in the network file system and 8 TB in the MySQL database\u2014from Amazon Elastic File System<\/a> (Amazon EFS) into Amazon Simple Storage Service<\/a> (Amazon S3). C4XD can then use Amazon Athena<\/a>, a serverless, interactive analytics service built on open-source frameworks, to analyse that data whenever needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another change involved updating C4XD\u2019s Taxonomy3 processing engine, which powers the PatientSeek platform, by using Amazon EMR<\/a> to easily run big-data workloads. This integrates with Amazon SageMaker<\/a>, which helps to build, train, and deploy machine learning models for C4XD\u2019s data analyses. In addition, Ubertas used Amazon SageMaker to support the creation of different data silos for different users and datasets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developed over the course of just 13 weeks, the project also strengthened security. <\/strong>\u201cWe have a nice, granular layer of security, and data implemented and classified across all the different projects, so we know who has access and who doesn\u2019t,\u201d Purdon says. \u201cWe also have audit tracking as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the project, Humphryes-Kirilov says he was most impressed by Ubertas\u2019 ability to understand clearly what C4XD needed and then deliver a solution that met those needs.<\/strong> \u201cWhat stood out most was their ability to grasp what we do already and what the main issues were,\u201d he says. \u201cRoss got to know everything so quickly. That\u2019s the mark of a great consultant. Every problem that we had, there was a list of AWS tools that he suggested, ranked by what could be the best. It was just the overall efficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Quote\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n



“Ross got to know everything so quickly. That\u2019s the mark of a great consultant.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Neil Humphryes-Kirilov, Associate Director of Genomics,
C4XD<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Results: New Capabilities to Meet Future Research Needs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Moving 13 TB of data to Amazon S3 and the new PatientSeek platform has helped C4XD to reduce its data storage costs by about 75 percent. And all that data was successfully migrated in around 300 hours\u2014just under 2 weeks\u2014with zero downtime for the company. <\/strong>\u201cC4XD are a very nice customer to work with,\u201d says Purdon. \u201cThey also have a new DevOps guy who joined for this project, who\u2019s got a lot of experience and exposure to AWS. And they\u2019re even looking at bringing more of their on-premises infrastructure into AWS as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with gaining an improved platform with a more user-friendly interface, C4XD has also gained the ability to run analyses on data vendors\u2019 trusted research environments. In such an environment, a partner like C4XD isn\u2019t allowed to download vendor data but can use its own algorithms within the vendor\u2019s system and, with the vendor\u2019s approval, export the results of that analysis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With more data vendors moving to such environments, this was essential for C4XD\u2019s new PatientSeek strategy and future needs, explains Humphryes-Kirilov. \u201cThere\u2019s absolutely no way that we\u2019d have been able to do that before,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we\u2019re planning in the near future to access data in that way. Having that portability is really a massive advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About Devoteam, an AWS Premier Partner<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ubertas Consulting, an AWS Premier Partner and part of Devoteam, specialises in architecting, migrating, and supporting complex applications on AWS. It was established in 2007 in the UK and holds 6 key AWS Competencies and, as a validated Well-Architected Partner, is a leader in AWS architectural best practices. Ubertas Consulting has a deep expertise in cloud modernisation, generative AI solutions, and enterprise-scale transformations. It helps organisations leverage cutting-edge AWS technologies to drive innovation and business value.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Your Success Starts Here<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Partner with Devoteam to leverage award-winning tech expertise, agile execution, and a culture of continuous learning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Get in touch<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Discover how C4XD migrated 13 TB of data to a modern solution on AWS and reduced storage costs by 75% with help from AWS Partner Devoteam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":148488,"template":"","categories":[1628,1631],"tags":[],"industry":[1591],"class_list":["post-577466","success-story","type-success-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aws","category-cloud-native-architecture","industry-healthcare-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"cards":"\n\t

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\"C4XD<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t
\n\t

Success story<\/p>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t

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