News Briefs 

Apple announced that ResearchKit, a software framework to help researchers gather data from study participants using mobile devices, is now available to researchers and developers. The first research apps developed using ResearchKit study asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, and have already enrolled over 60,000 iPhone users. (For one implementation, see “LifeMap Solutions Teams Up with Mount Sinai on Digital Health.”) Now, medical researchers will be able to use ResearchKit to develop their own apps, and developers can contribute new research modules to the open source framework. The initial customizable modules address participant consent, surveys, and targeted data gathering. Press release 

INC Research Holdings, Inc., a global contract research organization (CRO), entered a strategic collaboration with DrugDev to find new efficiencies in clinical trials through greater access to and management of investigator and site data. INC Research will become the first CRO to fully implement DrugDev’s SiteCloud platform, which uses a universal identifier known as the DrugDev Golden Number to create a virtual database with site and investigator profiles, helping users to make evidence-driven site selection decisions and collaborate more efficiently with pharmaceutical customers also using the DrugDev platform. (See also, “DrugDev on the Investigator Registry, Designing Innovative Solutions.”) Press release 

The Swedish Cancer Institute (SCI), a Seattle-based cancer treatment center, has adopted Syapse’s Precision Medicine Platform to enhance its Personalized Medicine Program. The software platform will help clinicians integrate genomic information into patient care and contribute to cancer research. By combining gene alteration data with the clinical decision support of the Syapse platform, patients may receive tailored therapies or targeted clinical trials specific to their cancer profiles. The platform will integrate with SCI’s enterprise electronic medical record, and will include profiles of thousands of individual tumors, making it one of the largest databases of its kind with direct day-to-day impact on cancer care. Press release 

RoundingWell, an integrated care management platform provider, announced a partnership with Boston-based Center for Case Management. The two companies will work together to help clients adapt to the needs of emerging value-based payment models, where revenues are tied to the optimization of care coordination and patient outcomes. Press release 

New Products 

BaseHealth announced a new integrated enterprise offering for health organizations. BaseHealth’s technology combines genomic insights and a wide variety of health data to deliver personalized wellbeing recommendations to individuals. The cloud based, HIPAA-compliant enterprise offering creates personalized health assessments and detailed action plans using a user’s environmental factors, genetics, lifestyle, and medical records. LABCO, the largest European medical diagnostics group, has already implemented BaseHealth inside its existing platform, and will roll the new capability out to its network of 50,000 referent physicians over the next 5 years. (See also, “BaseHealth Seeks New Model for Offering Patients Genetic Health Information.”) Press release 

TrialScope announced the availability of Convert, a free online clinical trial data conversion service. The complimentary service allows users to reuse clinical trial results data that was previously reported to the U.S. registry at clinicaltrials.gov, and convert it to the appropriate format for submission to the European registry (EudraCT). Sponsors can access the free conversion service from the TrialScope website at convert.trialscope.com. Press release 

CluePoints, a provider of Centralized Statistical Monitoring (CSM) solutions for clinical trials, today announced a collaboration with Oracle Health Sciences, combining CluePoints’ risk-based monitoring (RBM) solution with Oracle’s clinical data capture and management platform, Oracle Health Sciences Inform Cloud Service. The combination of CluePoints’ solution and Oracle’s RBM cloud platform allows identification of risks based on patient data, site level, or region using clinical data from the InForm platform, complementing existing RBM capabilities that identify operational risks for a study. Press release 

Accenture expanded the Accenture Life Sciences Cloud for Research and Development (R&D) powered by Oracle with the addition of enhanced clinical data management capabilities. This latest version of the Accenture Life Sciences Cloud for R&D offers the Oracle Health Sciences Data Management Workbench (DMW), which includes prebuilt integrations to the Oracle Health Sciences InForm, an electronic data capture (EDC) solution. With the addition of the Oracle Health Sciences DMW, the Accenture Life Sciences Cloud for R&D automates the manual processes required to load, transform and clean trial data. Press release 

WuXi NextCODE Genomics and DNAnexus have formed a strategic alliance to accelerate the use of genomics in patient care, making WuXi NextCODE’s genomic database model and clinical and research interfaces directly available on the DNAnexus cloud. Users will be able to store and interpret their sequence data and collaborate with colleagues around the world through one platform. The companies will also provide and host the same platform and capabilities in China. Press release 

Seven Bridges Genomics, Inc. and Station X, Inc., announced that they have completed the integration of their respective platforms for researchers and clinicians seeking a seamless, end-to-end solution for scalable genomic data management, storage and analysis. The Seven Bridges Genomics Platform provides an integrated environment to manage next generation sequencing data analysis workflows. GenePool, from Station X, allows researchers to securely manage, visualize, and analyze processed genomic data from one to thousands of patients, and securely share the data and resulting knowledge with colleagues. Press release 

IO Informatics (IOI) released Sentient Knowledge Explorer 5.1, the latest edition of IOI’s semantic data integration and knowledge management software for healthcare and life sciences. New features include an improved ontology import interface via web service from NCBO BioPortal, and HTTPS proxy server support. Knowledge Explorer provides graphical and machine inference-enabled creation of linked data from various sources, with a command line interface for embedding RDF creation in users’ programs or workflows. Press release