DATA LAKES

Data lake to strengthen the Scanian Life Science Industry

About the project

Drug development is a risky, long, complicated and costly process as disease and patient profiles have become more complex. This places demands on evidence-based research and development, which requires access to health data for companies as well as life science researchers. The project develops an innovation environment in the form of a data lake that makes available health data from the health care system.

Purpose

The availability of health data for research and innovation is a goal in the national life science strategy and a priority area in the regional innovation agenda for life science and health. Establishing the project’s innovation environment enables businesses to:

Risk-minimizing development projects
Implement faster, cheaper and more qualitative clinical studies
Carry out analysis and planning of patient inclusion in clinical studies
Conduct digital observational studies
See new connections on the effect or safety of different treatments that are not limited by study design
Identify new treatment options, e.g. new indications for existing drugs
Perform realistic market analysis that includes complex relationships (e.g. multi-disease)

Short description

Both in Skåne’s innovation strategy and in the innovation agenda for the specialization area life science and health, access to test and demo environments is described as a challenge for business growth and needs. Adjacent challenges and needs connected to growth and innovation are: the ability of the healthcare system to provide a test environment for life science companies, a reduced number of clinical trials in Scania and a lack of access to health data. The project meets these challenges by creating an environment, a data lake, which makes health data available in a privacy-protected manner, to create the conditions for applied and collaborative research. This enables cheaper, safer and faster innovation processes in life science. In the environment, trends regarding effects, side effects, interactions and complications can be analyzed and monitored during all phases of drug development, which strengthens companies’ ability to grow.