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MMRF, GenoSpace to Build Database Containing Multiple Myeloma Discoveries

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation and GenoSpace today announced a partnership to create an "information ecosystem" of new discoveries in multiple myeloma to be used by researchers, clinicians, and patients.

The foundation and the company will create a publicly shared database that provides researchers access to data from the MMRF CoMMpass (Relating Clinical Outcomes in Multiple Myeloma to Personal Assessment of Genetic Profile) Study. The database will also give patients access to real-time clinical and community support.

Launched in 2011, the CoMMpass Study is collecting clinical information on and molecular profiling of more than 1,000 newly diagnosed patients. The information for each patient is being collected for a minimum of five years, and centralizing such data could hasten the discovery of new treatment options, diagnostics, biomarkers, and drug targets, MMRF and Genospace said.

In collaboration with GenoSpace and others in the pharmaceutical, academic, and government spaces, MMRF aims to create the largest, consolidated patient information ecosystem "overcoming the hurdles in finding new discoveries for myeloma and potentially other cancers sharing the same molecular targets."

Earlier this week, MMRF announced a collaboration with the US Department of Veterans Affairs on the CoMMpass Study.

Its partnership with GenoSpace supports CoMMpass' mission to elucidate patient disease progression and response to treatments by "filling the need to securely store, enable ready access, visualize, and allow for analysis of the complex data from the CoMMpass Study and other research initiatives in multiple myeloma for academic and industry scientists worldwide," MMRF said in a statement.

"The comprehensive data generated from the MMRF CoMMpass Study will be an invaluable resource for multiple myeloma research, providing a breadth of clinical and molecular data never before captured in this disease," Kathy Giusti, founder and CEO of MMRF and the Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium (MMRC) and a multiple myeloma patient, said. "Conveying this data openly to clinicians and researchers in pursuit of individualized treatment approaches is critical to our mission."

"The next phase in our partnership with the MMRF will be to create tools that empower patients with multiple myeloma to more directly and fully participate in the scientific discovery and clinical research processes," GenoSpace Co-founder and CEO John Quackenbush added. "The resources we are creating with MMRF are state of the art and can serve as a model for conducting integrative molecular research in other diseases."