Illinois-based NorthShore University HealthSystem, along with Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, Wake Forest Baptist Health System, Medical University of South Carolina, Ochsner Health System, University of Arkansas, and the University of Nebraska are collaborating on “to precision medicine at the point of care, through the EMR.”

Focused on neurological disease, this consortium of leading hospitals is working to showcase how biobanking (in this case patient DNA) tied to specialized longitudinal EHR data derived from a neurological office visits can eventually be analyzed to conduct practice-based research, to make discoveries and ultimately to improve quality of care.

Precision medicine at the point of care is also a fundamental goal of Novaseek. Our core mission is to tie together biosamples and EHR data to create a more holistic, personalized picture of a patient’s disease.

In today’ age of personalized medicine, getting “fit for purpose” biosamples is crucial for pharmaceutical industry. Creating solutions that meet this objective was the topic of a webinar recently put on by the Pistoia Alliance. Dr. Kate Torchilin, CEO of Novaseek, moderated the discussion: http://www.pistoiaalliance.org/slides-available-from-biosample-exchanges-webinar/

According the expert panel, the biobank industry today is facing the challenge of too many specimens being collected without proper quality controls and without consistent patient consent processes, as well as the absence of complementary patient data. Interestingly, 100% of participants responded in the poll conducted during the webinar that it is very important for them to have access to patient clinical data in addition to the biospecimen. One of the panelists, Dr. Philip Quinlan of the University of Nottingham, noted that the problem for the industry is not in finding a biobank, but finding the right specimen.
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The panelists discussed how to solve this problem and create a resource for pharma industry to procure the biospecimens along with the data that they need. Fortunately, this is exactly what Novaseek is doing with our Clinical Data Network for Research (CDNR) platform.