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BC Platforms Partners With Finnish Biobanks for Therapeutics Research

NEW YORK – BC Platforms said Friday that it has landed a multiyear contract to work with three clinical biobanks in Finland to improve access to and management of genomic, phenotypic, and other clinical data.

The Zurich-based bioinformatics company will provide and customize its technology for the Biobank Borealis of Northern Finland, Finnish Clinical Biobank Tampere (FCBT), and Central Finland Biobank in Jyväskylä, which together hold health data on 2 million Finns, or about a third of the country's population. All three biobanks are members of the FinnGen public-private population health research project that seeks to genotype 500,000 Finnish people by 2023.

The biobanks will also work with BC Platforms to adapt the technology to changing needs, including outcomes research to inform the development of advanced diagnostics, a company spokesperson said.

Istekki, a Finnish government-owned systems integrator and project management office that assists healthcare organizations with technology deployment, facilitated the alliance.

BC Platforms will provide at least three of its software products to the biobanks, namely registry and consent management platform BC|Core, sample management system BC|Sample, and discovery and analytics system BC|Insight. Projects will differ between biobanks, but BC Platforms said that its work in this alliance will focus on therapeutics in areas including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.

"Our partnership with BC Platforms provides us with unique, sophisticated software tools that significantly reduce the resource needed to administer the data in our biobank, enabling more focus on making Finland a leading country for biobank studies," FCBT Director Sanna Siltanen said in a statement.

"In Finland, where we have our R&D center, the genetic heritage of the population has significant value in providing clinical insights into the causation and treatment of many diseases. We see this partnership opening new strategic health data-driven, high-impact opportunities for biobanks and the science community," BC Platforms CEO Tero Silvola added.

The BC Platforms spokesperson said that the company expects to participate in additional, unspecified research projects with the Finnish biobanks.