The TranSMART Foundation and BT have forged a partnership that allows the latest version of the TranSMART knowledge management platform — an open source data sharing and analytics system (BI 6/7/2013) — to be offered on the BT for Life Sciences cloud infrastructure — a service the telecommunications giant launched last year to support scientists from pharmaceutical, biotechnology, devices, and diagnostics companies, as well as those in academia and government (BI 4/27/2012).
Michael Braxenthaler, the TranSMART foundation's co-CEO, said in a statement that BT will host a publically-accessible version of the current incarnation of tranSMART — version 1.1 — that "will provide a rich data environment for exploring the capabilities of the tranSMART platform." This will include tools for sharing integrating, standardizing, and analyzing heterogeneous translational research data.
Also for an undisclosed fee, BT will "provide a straightforward 'click-to-deploy' service for organizations that choose to partner with cloud providers for infrastructure services," Braxenthaler said.
Commenting on the partnership, Bas Burger, president of BT Global Services' North American and Global Industry Verticals, described it as "an important milestone for [his company's] life science ecosystem," one that lines up with BT's efforts to contribute to the drug discovery and development arena.
Brian Athey, co-CEO of the TranSMART Foundation, added that the BT partnership is "the first of many strategic relationships the Foundation will be forming to optimize our community's data sharing solution and to advance translational medicine research."