BC Platforms (BCP), a global leader in healthcare data management and analytics, today announced expansion of its R&D operations in Singapore, which spearheads precision medicine activities in the Asia Pacific region, including China and Japan.
The company also announced a research partnership with Singapore Health Services (‘SingHealth’), Singapore’s largest public healthcare group. SingHealth has joined BCP’s BCRQUEST global data network, in a research partnership to accelerate the genetic understanding and clinical research of diseases prevalent in Asian cohorts, including cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
The core strategy of BCP is to develop privacy and security driven technology for trusted research infrastructure. This will then enable a safe build up cohort studies representing Asia’s rich multi-ethnicity, which is of value for life science research as well as clinical decision making.
The Company’s award-winning Trusted Research Environment (TRE) platform will support life sciences researchers, enabling secure and truly federated access to data custodians’ data.
Nino da Silva, Deputy Managing Director, BCP, said, “At BCP, our mission is to accelerate the translation of research into global clinical practice through the faster generation of translatable, actionable, research insights. Singapore is a top-quality hub as a life sciences leader in Asia, and we have been active here since 2019. We are consistent in executing according to our strategic commitments and are now ramping up our activities in this key market. We are building a gateway to Asia with a focus on developing next generation Trusted Research Environments for healthcare data. We encourage health systems to invest in consenting and data infrastructure as it provides strong foundations underpinning personalized medicine and ultimately improves outcomes for patients.”
Niko Hurskainen, Chief Technology Officer, BCP, who will lead the R&D Center in Singapore, commented, “Asian real-world data is under-represented in global life science research. Through our collaborations in the region with national healthcare systems we will enable researchers to have secure access to good quality, carefully curated, data from Asia, to help build novel medical diagnostics and treatments. While TRE R&D leadership stays at the heart of the TRE concept in the UK, our Singapore R&D Centre, which is fully integrated with local healthcare and research institutions, will be core to our continued effort to deliver leading locally relevant user experiences on top of leading data management, scalability and privacy capabilities. Additionally, we see the region as a great location for building and scaling our global R&D organisation to support a global customer base.”
Professor Yeo Khung Keong, Deputy Group Chief Medical Informatics Officer (Research), SingHealth, commented, “At SingHealth, our vision is ‘Defining Tomorrow’s Medicine’. We are very glad to be partnering BC Platforms to strive towards this. By embarking on a data partnership with BC Platforms, we aim to expand the reach of our cardiac research collaboration globally to gain deeper insights into cardiovascular diseases, which currently account for nearly 30 per cent of all deaths in Singapore, to improve care outcomes. With BC Platforms’ R&D investment into Singapore, we hope to leverage this partnership to strengthen translational research capabilities for the region to enable greater patient access to more effective treatments and cures.”
The company has been steadily building up its presence in Asia, as part of its mission to deliver industry-leading interpretation services on genomics related insights, including pharmacogenomics in clinical practice in Asia and around the world. Singapore is the fastest growing market in Asia, with strong governmental commitment to facilitate genomics related research and innovation using genomic and clinical data. The company’s Singapore R&D Centre will support recent Asia-based collaborations including with Japan’s Mitsubishi Space Software, announced Feb 2022, and Thailand’s Bumrungrad International Hospital (BIH), announced October 2021.
