NEW YORK – BC Platforms said Wednesday that it has opened an R&D center in Singapore and has entered into a research partnership with Singapore Health Services (SingHealth).
The new center will serve as the Swiss firm's hub for precision medicine activities in key Asia-Pacific markets, including China and Japan. BC Platforms has operated in Singapore since 2019, but the R&D center represents a significant expansion in the region.
"We are building a gateway to Asia with a focus on developing next-generation trusted research environments for healthcare data," BC Platforms' deputy managing director, Nino da Silva, said in a statement. "We encourage health systems to invest in consenting and data infrastructure, as it provides strong foundations underpinning personalized medicine and ultimately improves outcomes for patients."
Niko Hurskainen, chief technology officer at BC Platforms, will lead the Singapore R&D center.
"Asian real-world data is under-represented in global life science research," he said. "Through our collaborations in the region with national healthcare systems, we will enable researchers to have secure access to good-quality, carefully curated data from Asia to help build novel medical diagnostics and treatments."
As part of its partnership with BC Platforms, SingHealth is joining the company's BC|Rquest global data network for analyzing and viewing aggregated genomic and clinical data from multiple biobanks. Working with BC Platforms, the Singapore-based health system will seek to accelerate research and uncover new genetic knowledge related to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions prevalent in Asian populations.
"By embarking on a data partnership with BC Platforms, we aim to expand the reach of our cardiac research collaboration globally to gain deeper insights into cardiovascular diseases, which currently account for nearly 30 percent of all deaths in Singapore, to improve care outcomes," said Yeo Khung Keong, deputy group CMIO for research at SingHealth. "With BC Platforms' R&D investment into Singapore, we hope to leverage this partnership to strengthen translational research capabilities for the region to enable greater patient access to more effective treatments and cures."