BC Platforms Announces Partnerships with Three Finnish Biobanks to Advance Novel Diagnostics and Treatments

BC Platforms (BCP), a global leader in healthcare data management and analytics, announced it has secured a multi-year contract, following a competitive procurement, to work with three Finnish Hospital District owned Biobanks (Clinical Biobanks) on improving access to, and automated management of, phenotypic, genomic, and clinical data. The project underpins Finland’s ambition to be a leading country for Real-World Data (RWD) studies, supporting the global development of novel treatments and enhancing the resilience of healthcare systems. Therapeutic areas of focus will include cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Biobanks hold the future of medical research, diagnostic, and treatments in their data, but it is often hard to make good use of the data for global benefit. Overall, BCP’s software enables Biobanks around the world to run their daily operations more effectively and efficiently, enhancing the utility of the data contained for use in academic and commercial research.

The biobanks involved are the Biobank Borealis of Northern Finland (which includes Lapland), Finnish Clinical Biobank Tampere (FCBT), and the Central Finland Biobank in Jyväskylä, all of which have been in operation since 2015. Collectively these Biobanks cover health data from around 2 million Finnish citizens, which is approximately 1/3 of the population. Biobanks have also specific collections, for example The Finnish Maternity Cohort (FMC), which covers samples from almost 1 million mothers nationwide. The Biobanks support research in disease prevention including for example cardiovascular disease, cancer, immunology, and type 1 diabetes.

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The Biobanks operate to support high quality medical research to understand the factors in disease mechanisms, promote development of new products and services that promote public health. The Biobanks frequently publish their findings from various biobank research ^{(1) (2) (3)}. All these biobanks are members of the FinnGen project and have access to produced genome data.

The partnership was orchestrated by one of Finland’s leading ICMT companies, Istekki, owned by hospital districts and the public sector. The organisation acts as a system integrator and project office for the deployment of new technologies

Tero Silvola, CEO of BCP, said, “We’re delighted to announce another partnership with these prestigious Finnish Biobanks, and thank Istekki for making it happen. In Finland, where we have our R&D centre, the genetic heritage of the population has significant value in providing clinical insights into the causation and treatment of many diseases. We see this partnership opening new strategic health data driven high impact opportunities for Biobanks and the science community.”

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Sanna Siltanen, Director, FCBT, commented, “This is good news for developing the Finnish healthcare system and its research capabilities. Consented sample and patient information enables an integrated and automated operating model under Finnish Biobank Act and GDPR. We believe our good quality longitudinal geno-pheno data samples will attract research interest globally. Our partnership with BC Platforms provides us with unique, sophisticated, software tools that significantly reduce the resource needed to administer the data in our Biobank, enabling more focus on making Finland a leading country for Biobank-studies.”

Kirsi Kauhanen, Service Manager, Istekki Oy, commented, “We are pleased to play a part in improving our Biobank customers data management and collaborate in fruitful co-operation with BC Platforms. We’re looking forward to the upcoming years ensuring that customer expectations are met and even exceeded. Our key objective is to ensure our customers have safe and reliable environment to work and excel in their core area. We trust that BC Platforms is a competent partner in making this happen with us.”

BCP will be providing several of its proprietary software-based solutions to the partnership, including:

• BC|CORE, for: participant, identifier registry and consent management & data collection system to manage participant, sample and handover register
• BC|SAMPLE for: sample management system for sample registration and management

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