Lifebit & Boehringer Ingelheim Join Forces to Unlock Health Data
2 minute read
Ingrid Knarston, PhD
Boehringer Ingelheim partners with Lifebit Biotech, Ltd. to build a scalable data, analytics, and infrastructure platform
This collaboration aims at capturing translational disease insights from large external healthcare biobanks and maximizing value of data for drug discovery and precision medicine
London, United Kingdom, March 1, 2022– The leading research-driven biopharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim and precision medicine software company Lifebit Biotech, Ltd. (Lifebit) today announce partnership in which Lifebit will support Boehringer Ingelheim in building a scalable data, analytics, and infrastructure platform within its IT environment.
“This platform will play an important part of Boehringer Ingelheim’s broader strategy to capture translational disease insights from large external healthcare biobanks and ultimately to accelerate the development of innovative medicines,” commented Dr. Jan Nygaard Jensen, SVP and Global Head of Computational Biology and Digital Sciences at Boehringer Ingelheim. Lifebit’s transformational solutions and services will provide standardization of data sources and types, data curation, identification of data and services that could be migrated to cloud, and federating data connectivity with third parties.
A key element of this partnership involves Lifebit’s CloudOS platform – a powerful, secure and cutting-edge platform used by a growing number of research organizations and governments globally, such as Genomics England and The Hong Kong Genome Project. The federated architecture of this platform securely brings analytics and computing tools to the data rather than moving sensitive data around. This promises to unlock the transformational value of biomedical data by enabling seamless integration with world-leading population genomics and disease-focused cohorts. Another key benefit of Lifebit’s CloudOS will be the provision of powerful analytic capabilities and global biobank connections to build a secure “dataland” for analytics and research.
This collaboration follows on the partnership announced in 2021 on utilizing the Lifebit REAL platform to accelerate detection of the latest disease outbreaks including transboundary diseases and emerging pathogens, such as COVID-19.
Lifebit CEO Dr. Maria Chatzou Dunford shared: “We are thrilled to contribute to Boehringer Ingelheim’s vision of harnessing the power of external biobanks and large-scale clinico-genomic data to transform R&D. We are excited to see how our technology and global biobank partnerships can transform research capabilities for Boehringer Ingelheim and deliver powerful impacts for clinical development pipelines across disease areas.”
“We are continuously on the lookout for new opportunities to be able to deliver faster, better and safer solutions. Therefore, partnering with Lifebit, one of our partners in this area, is so critical as data and digital technologies can feed into meaningful scientific exploration, accelerate patient benefits, and ultimately lead to improved health,” added Markus Schümmelfeder, Head of IT at Boehringer Ingelheim.
About Lifebit Biotech, Ltd.
Lifebit builds enterprise data platforms for use by organisations with complex and sensitive biomedical datasets. Lifebit’s patented federated technology securely unlocks access to biomedical data. From providing Trusted Research Environments for national precision medicine programmes to enabling pharmaceutical companies to discover new drug targets faster, Lifebit empowers customers to transform how they leverage sensitive biomedical data.
About Boehringer Ingelheim
Boehringer Ingelheim is working on breakthrough therapies that improve the lives of humans and animals. As a leading research-driven biopharmaceutical company, the company creates value through innovation in areas of high unmet medical need. Founded in 1885 and family-owned ever since, Boehringer Ingelheim takes a long-term perspective. Around 52,000 employees serve more than 130 markets in the three business areas, Human Pharma, Animal Health, and Biopharmaceutical Contract Manufacturing.
