London, UK – 25 May 2021: The leader in population genomics and precision medicine technology, Lifebit Biotech Ltd, today announced it has been awarded a four-year contract by Hong Kong’s Genome Institute (HKGI) to support its implementation of the Hong Kong Genome Project (Project), the first large-scale genome sequencing initiative in Hong Kong.

Lifebit offers federated solutions for leading precision medicine initiatives, such as Genomics England. In 2020, Lifebit launched a Trusted Research Environment which currently provides global top pharmaceutical companies, researchers and clinicians secure and full-fledged analysis access to cancer, rare disease clinico-genomic data.

Funded by the Hong Kong SAR Government, HKGI is tasked to take forward the implementation of the project with the view of serving as a catalyst to establish a genome database of the local population, testing infrastructure and talent pool in Hong Kong. All of these will greatly facilitate the clinical application of genomic medicine and scientific research, and benefit patients and their families. To support HKGI and the Project, Lifebit will deploy a highly scalable cloud and HPC infrastructure to transform raw sequencing data into clinical diagnosis and research insights in as little as 3 hours.

The platform includes various portals that cater to different end-user needs:

• Clinical Portal will provide clinicians with critical clinical decision support, enabling HKGI and its clinicians to turn raw data into key patient insights.
• Research Portal will enable biomedical researchers worldwide to securely access, query and analyse the extensive dataset to increase the understanding of diseases including undiagnosed disorders and hereditary cancers. 

“We are thrilled to contribute to the Hong Kong Genome Project by providing a flexible, but extremely secure environment for clinicians and researchers alike to carry out their important work,” said Lifebit CEO, Dr Maria Chatzou Dunford. “This Project serves as a catalyst to establish a clinico-genomic database of the population, while at the same time bestowing great medical benefits to patients.”  

Thorben Seeger, Lifebit VP Commercial, said:
“Precision medicine requires vast amounts of data to be analysed and we believe federated analysis will play a key role in powering the Project for HKGI. This federated approach is tremendously increasing researchers’ access to diverse population genomics data worldwide, such as Genomics England, without putting sensitive patient data at risk, as the data will always remain secure in each government’s own environment.”

About Lifebit Biotech, Ltd

To cure diseases, researchers need to access and use as much biomedical data as possible, which are often inaccessible and unusable. Lifebit’s patented federated technology securely unlocks access to data-generating insights and delivers more precise drugs faster. Lifebit builds enterprise data platforms for use by organisations with complex and sensitive biomedical data environments. From providing Trusted Research Environments for national precision medicine programmes to enabling pharmaceutical companies to discover new drug targets, Lifebit empowers customers across the public and private sectors to transform how they use sensitive biomedical data. 

Contact Details:

Lifebit press contact: pr@lifebit.ai

Additional Information:

• Genomics England launches next-generation research platform central to UK COVID-19 response
• Recap of PopGen: Live – Behind-the-scenes of Genomics England’s revolutionary new Research Environment
  
• The next great leap in drug development will come from clinico-genomics data – But do we have the right approach?