Cancer Research Horizons advances data partnership ambitions through collaboration with leading data broker
Cancer Research Horizons to make datasets available for research proposals on the federated Lifebit Platform
Lifebit will support data standardisation and use its federated Trusted Research Environment to enable interrogation by industry partners
LONDON, UK, 28 January 2025 – Cancer Research Horizons has joined Lifebit’s Federated Data Network to help maximise the impact of data generated through Cancer Research UK-funded research.
This federated network leverages Lifebit’s cutting-edge Platform to ensure secure access to standardised datasets of millions of cancer patients from multiple international institutions for use in secure, large-scale cross-cohort analyses.
Under the partnership agreement, Cancer Research Horizons becomes a member of the network with the ability to upload information on its datasets to the Lifebit Platform. Once available on the platform, companies will be able to request access to datasets by submitting a research proposal detailing the analyses they intend to perform.
Cancer Research Horizons’ Data Access Committee, which includes patients, will review research proposals to determine if they are appropriate for the data. For successful proposals, the Lifebit Platform will allow the company to perform analyses on the data in combination with other datasets from within the network, providing the federated results of the analyses back to the company as the final output, protecting the safety and security of the dataset.
Tony Hickson, Chief Business Officer of Cancer Research Horizons, said: “The partnership builds on Cancer Research Horizons’ ambition to increase secure and transparent commercial and academic access to high-quality cancer datasets generated by Cancer Research UK-funded researchers. In particular, the Lifebit Platform increases the reach and diversity of potential users of the data and allows our data to be combined with datasets from a wide range of leading institutions to enable population-scale analyses.”
Thorben Seeger, Chief Business Development Officer of Lifebit, said: “Especially in oncology, collaboration over data cohorts is critical as it is often hard to find enough counts to achieve sufficient statistical power for a specific stratification. Having Cancer Research Horizons join the Federated Data Network means we can support even more research needs from pharma and biotech companies as Lifebit uniquely draws from a global network of leading clinico-molecular cohorts.”
Cancer Research Horizons will initially make its multi-omic clinically linked colorectal cancer database, S: CORT, available through the platform, with the intention to expand this to other datasets in the future. Importantly this partnership, and the use of data through the federated Lifebit Platform will align with Cancer Research Horizons’ Commercial Data Partnership Guiding Principles, ensuring safe and transparent use of patient-derived data with the primary aim of positive patient impact.
Cancer Research Horizons is the innovation engine of Cancer Research UK – the world's largest charitable funder of cancer research. It brings together world-leading minds, bold ideas and the right partners to bridge the gap between academic research and taking drugs to market. It focuses on the tougher, more profound ideas that can lead to true innovation, translating them into effective treatments and diagnostics for cancer patients.
To date, it has played an instrumental role in forming over 70 start-ups. It has helped bring 14 cancer drugs to market, borne out of Cancer Research UK's pioneering research. Through these drugs, it has enabled in excess of 6 million courses of treatment for cancer patients across the world.
With access to Cancer Research UK's network of 4,000 exceptional researchers, and £400m of annual research spend, it is a powerful partner in the fight to conquer cancer. By uniting its commercial partnerships and therapeutic innovation capabilities, Cancer Research Horizons is uniquely placed to support translational funding, entrepreneurial development, data licensing and collaboration, spin-out creation, and offer a full spectrum of drug discovery and clinical capabilities.
Every penny it makes goes back into funding the next bold steps, to help bring forward the day when all cancers are conquered.
For more information and to get in touch with the team, visit cancerresearchhorizons.com.
Lifebit is a global leader in genomics and health data and software, empowering organisations worldwide to transform how they securely and safely leverage sensitive biomedical data from the world’s largest health data network of over 270m patients. Lifebit is solving the most challenging problems in precision medicine, genomics and healthcare with a mission to create a world where access to biomedical data will never again be an obstacle to preventing and curing diseases. Learn more about Lifebit’s TRE here. www.lifebit.ai @lifebitAI
Cancer Research Horizons
tim.bodicoat@cancer.org.uk
Lifebit
pr@lifebit.ai