News Briefs

Huawei and WuXi AppTec announced the signing of a strategic framework agreement to support the China Precision Medicine Initiative (China PMI) through the creation of a precision medicine cloud platform. The agreement builds on Huawei’s capabilities in cloud infrastructure, combined with the genomics and precision medicine platforms of WuXi NextCODE, a subsidiary of WuXi AppTec. The partners will follow the guidance of the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) and work with third-party cloud providers to develop the data standards and exchange framework required to deliver the China PMI. (For more on WuXi population-scale genomics projects, see “WuXi NextCODE to Interpret Cancer Samples for UK 100,000 Genomes Project.”) Press release

Sophia Genetics announced that eight Turkish hospitals have adopted Sophia DDM, a clinical genomics community platform. Sophia Genetics will provide these hospitals with analytics solutions to diagnose patients of some cancers and inherited conditions. With these new partnerships, Sophia is now supporting 50% of all next-generation sequencing-equipped hospitals in Turkey. Press release

BC Platforms will collaborate with Microsoft to use the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and services for integrated genomic data management solutions in healthcare. Microsoft and BC Platforms will build the first proof of concept case with Helsinki University Hospital this year. Press release

goBalto announced a partnership with the Metrics Champion Consortium (MCC), joining MCC’s Leadership program. As a member of the Leadership Group, goBalto will collaborate with other member organizations to define industry benchmark measures for life science organizations engaged in starting clinical trials. MMC members identify what to measure in clinical trials and how to assess the data on an evolving basis. Press release

Bristol-Myers Squibb has selected Veeva’s Veeva Vault Registrations and Veeva Vault SubmissionsArchive, two regulatory solutions from the Vault RIM suite, to manage registration tracking and submission archiving globally. The Vault RIM suite provides real-time access to submission plans, product registration status, health authority correspondence and commitments, and local market submissions. The cloud-based Veeva Vault family of applications span clinical, quality, commercial, medical, and regulatory solutions. Press release

New Products

HealthCarePoint (HCP) completed global testing of its BlueCloud business model and networking technology and unveiled BlueCloud 2.0. In the past year, thousands of healthcare and clinical research organizations and other stakeholders have connected with BlueCloud 2.0 to share verifiable information via its private, secure and verifiable network. Working with ACRES (the Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety) over the past two years, HCP’s BlueCloud 2.0 now provides a working common universal “collaborative process” to propel the multi-stakeholder ACRES global system. (For more on BlueCloud 2.0, which was announced at the Summit for Clinical Ops Executives, see “SCOPE 2016: Protocol Quality, Patient Centricity, and Claiming the Future for Clinical Trials.”) Press release

Figshare, an online digital repository for academic research, launched Collections, which offers the research community, including publishers and funders, a “Pinterest” for academic research outputs. It enables users to gather any data types on Figshare including video, posters and code, whether public or private. With Collections, publishers are able group all supplementary data around a particular article, institutions can bring together all data and outputs around a topic, and researchers can create personal Collections for all work related to a research area. Announcement

UNIConnect introduced a LIMS offering for toxicology laboratories adding genomic analyses, pMDx-TOX, at the Society of Toxicology’s 55^th Annual Meeting and ToxExpo. Built on UNIConnect’s pMDx Precision Molecular Diagnostics LIMS platform, pMDX-TOX includes: test and current medication menus that can be customized on the fly; ICD-10 code selection; integration with analytical instrument software; parent drug and metabolite testing and reporting; and tracking of samples, with optional EMR integration. Press release (PDF)

IDBS unveiled E-WorkBook Inventory, a new module for E-WorkBook designed for lab inventory management. The module lets users register and search lab equipment, materials and samples and manage storage locations. Researchers can automatically capture inventory details within experiments by scanning a barcode, and the system creates and captures usage logs. (An additional module, E-WorkBook Connect, is a contender for the Bio-IT World Best of Show Awards at next week’s Bio-IT World Conference & Expo.)  Press release

GenomeDx Biosciences announced the launch of Decipher Biopsy, a genomic test that evaluates RNA expression-based biomarkers to predict the risk of high-grade disease, metastasis and cancer-specific death in men with prostate cancer. The launch brings the Decipher Prostate Cancer Classifier, already clinically adopted for applications following surgery, to newly diagnosed patients at initial biopsy. Press release