Federated Trusted Research Environment Case Studies
Trusted Research. Real Outcomes.
Last updated April 16, 2026 · Featured in The Lancet Oncology, 2025
Federated data case studies from Genomics England, the NIH, Boehringer Ingelheim, Canada and Singapore — institutions running Lifebit's federated TRE in production. Breast cancer breakthroughs, 90% faster target validation, Sovereign AI across 275M+ patients — without moving a single record.
Governments
Trusted by governments. Proven at scale.
The platform the public sector relies on.
How Genomics England's Lancet-published breast cancer breakthrough ran on Lifebit
“Lifebit Platform has been a game-changer, driving crucial progress in the breast cancer Research Network.”
Dr Daniella Black, 1st author of the Lancet Oncology study
CHALLENGES
Massive data volumes generated per genome
Complex, multi-stage clinico genomic analysis pipelines
High I/O demands and extremely long analyses runtimes
Escalating compute costs
Slow iteration cycles delaying scientific discovery
Accelerated translation from research insight to clinical application
OUTCOMES
Identification of actionable genomic biomarkers in breast cancer
Improved patient stratification for targeted therapies
Faster discovery cycles for genomic research teams
Reduced computational cost for large-scale studies
Accelerated translation from research insight to clinical application
27%
Breast cancer patients
with actionable genomic findings
70%
faster Runtime
for large-scale genomic analysis workflows
2,500+
Patient genomes
analysed across England
50%
lower Compute cost
for population-scale biomarker discovery
15,000+
Women annually
who could benefit from personalised treatment
Lifebit turns Fragmented Federal Data into Unified, Federated Discovery
“With Lifebit’s data transformation and mapping tools, we can process and harmonize distributed data through a single centralized, auditable, and reproducible workflow — something that would normally take years to achieve.”
Consensus feedback from NLM Federated Data Workshop participants
CHALLENGES
Siloed, fragmented data assets both within and between labs and ICs.
Requiring NIH authentication to any cloud-based system
No ability to analyze large distributed cohorts
Limited standardization of data and data elements within or between disease areas
Lack of privacy-preserving methods to identify patients across studies
OUTCOMES
First federated platform ever deployed in NIH
Research authentication via NIH Identity Access Management (IAM)
Collaboration without moving sensitive data—reducing delays and costs.
Reduced privacy and governance risk
Faster scientific discovery through increased intra- and inter-IC data access.
1hr
Data access request
down from 2-weeks
8
ICs onboarded
across NIH
19
pan-IC datasets
mapped to the OMOP CDM
100%
Data standardisation
achieved
Lifebit turns Complex Genomics Infrastructure into Scalable, Cost-Efficient Discovery
“I am incredibly excited that Lifebit joined us to launch the next phase of our research capabilities.”
Chris Wigley, Former-CEO of Genomics England
CHALLENGES
strict privacy and governance requirements
fragmented data environments
high cost and risk of transferring datasets
limited ability to analyse large distributed cohorts
OUTCOMES
30–90% lower cloud costs through large-scale analysis optimisation
Improved collaboration
Faster scientific discovery through faster access to data
Access to low/no-code user functionality
Easy to bring own tools and external data
125,500
cancer & rare disease
genomes with full clinical data
50
petabytes
of data
1200+
users
30-90%
lower
cloud costs
Lifebit turns Complex Data Governance into Trusted Research Access at Scale
“It is so inspiring and rewarding to see the next generation of researchers engaging with tools and resources like our dataset and Lifebit’s Trusted Research Environment.”
Vicki Kirsh, Scientific Coordinator
CHALLENGES
Diverse regulatory requirements across each of Canada’s provinces
High risk of transferring data sets directly to researchers
Sending new copies of data to researchers creates duplicates and multiple sources of truth
Lack of a standardized analytical environment makes it impossible to teach a core set of analytical skills at scale
No user access controls so one can’t confirm that only approved researchers are accessing the data
OUTCOMES
Centralized data management improves time-to-delivery for research data requests
Differential data access controls ensure the right data is shared without needing to create copies
Platform modularity facilitates alignment to course curricula and workshop learning outcomes
The flexibility of analytical tooling in the platform means workflows can be executed in minutes instead of days or weeks.
100%
Adherence
to pan-Canadian regulatory requirements
140+
Researchers and students
trained in next-gen data analytics in 3 months
50%
Decrease
in time-to-data access and analyses for researchers
Lifebit turns Multi-Modal Data Complexity into Insights Actionable Precision Medicine
“Through our collaboration with Lifebit, we are advancing the use of research and clinical insights using clinico-genomic data for precision medicine. By doing so, we hope to accelerate the translation into clinical workflows, in a manner that will make a significant impact to improving healthcare for Singaporeans.”
Andy Ta, Chief Data Officer and Director, Data Analytics & AI of Synapxe
CHALLENGES
20PB of genomic and linked health data, making data transfer and duplication impractical
High PDPA and MOH security requirements to access sensitive genomic and clinical datasets
Need to scalably support 1000+ researchers and multiple external partners (including pharma)
High complexity of securely linking multi-modal datasets (genomics, EHR, registries, imaging, lifestyle
OUTCOMES
Federated, privacy-preserving analysis without moving sensitive data
Secure data linkage across genomic, clinical, registry, and longitudinal datasets
Accelerated precision medicine for Asian populations, with faster translation to clinical and population health impact
Improved biomarker discovery and patient stratification across population-scale cohorts
Enablement of public-private partnerships between healthcare, academia, and pharma
100,000
Singaporean participants
in SG100K multi-ethnic cohort (20% Malay, 20% Indian, 60% Chinese)
20
Petabytes
of data
37
Research
projects launched
7
Global
pharmaceutical companies engaged
100%
Adherence
to Singapore Gov. security & regulatory requirements
Commercial
One platform. Every partner. Zero limits.
Built for pharma, providers and nonprofits.
Lifebit turns Distributed Cancer Data into Federated Global Insights
“The advanced capabilities of Lifebit’s Trusted Research Environment, coupled with our focus to reimagine the infrastructure of cancer care, are enabling us to unlock the potential of cancer data.”
Dr. Arun Sujenthiran, UK Clinical Lead and Senior Medical Director
CHALLENGES
Secure, governed analysis across distributed oncology datasets, ensuring compliance with regional data regulations without requiring data centralisation
Scalable data processing and ingestion, reducing the operational burden of reprocessing and validating data through automated pipelines and efficient data refreshes
Federated orchestration across jurisdictions, enabling coordinated updates and analyses across region-specific datasets without moving data
OUTCOMES
Federated data discovery, querying and analysis across multiple countries
Secure TRE enabling analysis of sensitive patient-level data without moving data across borders, ensuring strict privacy controls and compliance with national regulations.
Improved collaboration
Frequent data ingestion enables faster insights than traditional registries.
5M+
Patient Records
30+
Partners
across US, UK, Germany and Japan
100%
Federation
across US, UK, Germany and Japan
90
Day-cycle
for data refreshes
Lifebit turns Siloed Clinical Data into Accelerated Drug Development
“The Lifebit Platform is playing 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.”
Dr. Jan Nygaard Jensen, SVP & Global Head of Computational Biology & Digital Sciences
CHALLENGES
Providing secure access to UK Biobank data that would be in-line with the UKB governance policies.
Utilizing the Five Safes Principles to ensure data security and privacy while allowing user access and analysis.
UK Biobank and other biobank data standardized to OMOP so that they can be querried and analysed jointly.
Organise complex analytical workflows into logical units of work and publish the final results for wider use.
Federated between Genomics England, UK Biobank and others.
OUTCOMES
+90% faster target identification and validation analyses
Federated and joint analyses between UK Biobank, Genomics England and other biobank data.
Secure access to approved internal clinical data, with data never leaving the federated TRE.
Governance enforced with strict security standards maintained across all researcher interactions with Boehringer Ingelheim’s biobank and clinical trial data.
Enablement of responsible reuse of clinical data to turn insights into discoveries that improve healthcare.
59
Minutes vs. months
to complete target identification
500K+
UK Biobank
participant data analysed
125K+
Genomics England
participant data analysed
270+
Analytical processes
Built into an end-to-end protocol spanning 21 large-scale Nextflow pipelines
Lifebit turns Costly Research Barriers into Accessible Scientific Discovery
“If any research organisation is looking to make the most of their data management and have the impact within their community, connecting with the Lifebit team is a must.”
Grant Roesler, DREAM Platform Administrator
CHALLENGES
Strict trans-national privacy and governance requirements
High cost and risk of transferring datasets
Ensuring adherence to data access agreements
high cost and risk of transferring datasets
Harmonizing distributed molecular and clinico-phenotypic datasets from 9+ CROs
Costly cloud analyses limiting researchers’ ability to run all required studies
OUTCOMES
A flexible data management infrastructure that grows as the cohort and data types grow
From Excel to the Command Line – flexible analytical tooling that caters to all user skill levels
Standardized data assets promote findability and usability of diverse molecular and clinico-phenotypic data
Support every step of the way – guided training sessions to ensure clinicians and researchers alike are able to deliver results for their patients
30–90% lower cloud costs through large-scale analysis optimisation
100%
OMOP mapping
coverage of molecular and clinico-phenotypic data
3
Clinical sites
onboarded to the DREAM platform
100%
adherence
to US and Canadian data governance requirements
30–90%
Lower cloud costs
through large-scale analysis optimisation
Federation
The #1 federated platform for secure collaboration on distributed health data
CHALLENGE:
Clinical and multi-omic data is siloed, sovereign, and unmovable
97% of the world’s health data is locked away by privacy, geography, and regulation1
Drug programs stall for years waiting on data-sharing agreements. Rare-disease cohorts never reach statistical power. Population-level signals go undetected. Traditional central-cloud architectures were never built for data that can’t leave the country — and never will be.
Federated access lets researchers query distributed clinical, genomic and multi-omic cohorts across sovereign jurisdictions without moving a single record. Lifebit brings the analysis to the data — preserving privacy, data residency, and GDPR / HIPAA compliance — so pharma, biobanks and governments can run cross-border studies at population scale. Research that used to take years of data-sharing agreements now runs in days.
SOLUTION:
Securely connect, access & analyze distributed data in situ
Federation
One federated analysis environment. From UK's first federated genomics research network, to…
Lifebit worked with University of Cambridge, NIHR Cambridge BRC & Genomics England to successfully federate analysis of genomic healthcare data for the first time in the UK.
“Applied at scale, this means huge potential for new discoveries — particularly for research into rare diseases and for reducing health inequalities.”
…the largest global federated network across 3 continents, 5 sovereign jurisdictions
Now running in production with Genomics England, the NIH, Genome Canada, Boehringer Ingelheim, Flatiron Health and Synapxe — under UK, EU, US, Canadian and Singaporean data residency law.
Resources
Insights from the world of health data.
Case studies, news and research updates.
Frequently asked questions about federated health data
What is a federated health data platform?
A federated health data platform lets researchers securely analyse clinical, genomic, and multi-omic data that stays in situ — inside each hospital, biobank, or national archive — instead of being pooled into a central database. Lifebit enables federated analysis across institutions while meeting data sovereignty, privacy, and regulatory requirements including GDPR, HIPAA, and GA4GH.
How does Lifebit keep data in situ across borders?
Lifebit deploys a federated TRE (trusted research environment) inside each data custodian's infrastructure. Researchers submit approved analyses that execute where the data lives; only aggregate results — never raw records — cross borders. This meets UK, EU, US, Canadian, and Singaporean sovereignty rules while enabling global collaborative research.
Which federated TREs run on Lifebit?
Lifebit powers TREs for Genomics England, UK NIHR Bioresource, UK NIHR Cambridge, the NIH, Genome Canada, and Singapore's TRUST / National Precision Medicine programme, alongside top-tier pharma including Boehringer Ingelheim.
Is Lifebit GDPR, HIPAA, and GA4GH compliant?
Yes. Lifebit is deployed under GDPR in the UK and EU, HIPAA in the US, and follows GA4GH standards for genomic data interoperability. The platform is ISO 27001 certified with SOC 2 controls, and validated in national-scale production environments. See more details in the Trust Center.
What is the ROI of federated research vs. data pooling?
Lifebit customers report up to 90% faster target validation (Boehringer Ingelheim), 97% reduction in time to insight, and zero cost for data movement or replication. Federation avoids multi-year data-sharing agreements and eliminates the compliance and storage overhead of centralised repositories.
Which pharma companies have case studies with Lifebit?
Published case studies include Boehringer Ingelheim (target validation), Flatiron Health (real-world evidence), and peer-reviewed federated research in journals including The Lancet Oncology. Academic partners include Genomics England and NIHR Cambridge BRC.
How long does it take to deploy Lifebit's federated TRE?
Typical federated TRE deployments run 8–12 weeks from kick-off to first approved analysis, depending on the custodian's infrastructure and data residency requirements. Lifebit installs inside the custodian's environment — AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or on-premise — and integrates with existing identity, audit, and governance systems so researchers can onboard with minimal disruption.
How does Lifebit compare to AWS HealthLake, Databricks, and Snowflake?
AWS HealthLake, Databricks, and Snowflake centralise health data into a cloud warehouse — which triggers cross-border data-sharing agreements and sovereignty review before research can begin. Lifebit's federated TRE keeps the data inside each custodian's own environment; only aggregate, non-identifying results leave the jurisdiction. Lifebit also interoperates with these platforms where custodians already run them internally.
What is the difference between a federated TRE and a health data lake or warehouse?
A data lake or warehouse centralises raw records for analysis. A federated TRE is a secure analysis environment deployed at each source, where the data already lives. Federation removes the need to copy, harmonise, or move clinical and genomic records across borders — the main regulatory and time blocker for multi-country health data research.
Can federated analysis run on AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure?
Yes. Lifebit's federated TRE is cloud-agnostic and runs on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and on-premise infrastructure. Each custodian retains their existing cloud footprint and hosting contracts; Lifebit's control plane orchestrates federated queries across all of them, meeting UK, EU, US, Canadian, and Singaporean data residency law.
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