CancerLinQ, a wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), said it will accelerate development and delivery of high-quality, de-identified clinical databases through a license agreement with data services companies Tempus and Precision Health AI.
The value of the partnership was not disclosed—though ASCO said royalties from the license will help to support the Society’s CancerLinQ initiative.
CancerLinQ operates a namesake health information technology platform for oncology practices and cancer centers that is aimed at enhancing and improving the understanding and treatment of cancer. The partnership is designed to help CancerLinQ build and expand its platform more quickly, as well as help Tempus and Precision Health AI support faster and better development of new treatments for patients.
Tempus and Precision Health AI agreed to curate data into datasets intended for use in cancer care and research. The datasets will be made available through the core CancerLinQ quality improvement platform and CancerLinQ Discovery, a service designed to provide access to datasets for non-profit organizations, health care providers, academic researchers, and government agencies.
Tempus and Precision Health AI also agreed to supply the de-identified datasets to industry partners toward applications that include targeted therapies, more efficient clinical trials, and data-driven analyses to help determine which therapies produce the greatest patient benefit.
“As a result of the technical and financial contributions of Tempus and Precision Health AI, CancerLinQ aims to accelerate the pace of new quality improvement services to its subscribers,” CancerLinQ CEO Kevin Fitzpatrick said in a statement. “Our commitment to oncologists and the patients they serve is stronger than ever and this collaboration will allow us to deliver cutting-edge clinical tools and enhanced benefits to the cancer centers participating in CancerLinQ.”
CancerLinQ will retain its non-profit status and remain responsible for data integration and providing a platform of meaningful tools and reports to participating oncologists and oncology care sites, while Tempus and Precision Health AI have agreed to oversee further structuring of the dataset, with the goal of benefiting patients.
“Building on the vast network that CancerLinQ has established, our team will apply sophisticated technology tools to this large body of clinical and molecular data to help power cutting-edge research and produce actionable clinical insights,” added Tempus founder and CEO Eric Lefkofsky.
The agreement with Tempus and Precision Health AI is part of a broad group of collaborations that CancerLinQ LLC has established with government agencies, medical specialty societies, and life sciences companies, including the FDA, the American Society of Radiation Oncology, the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association, the NIH’s National Cancer Institute, the Oncology Nursing Society, and the Society of Gynecologic Oncology.
Earlier this year, CancerLinQ reached a key milestone with more than 100 oncology practices in 40 states and the District of Columbia signed up to participate. They account for more than 2,000 medical oncologists and have contributed more than a million cancer patient records in the database, CancerLinQ said.
CancerLinQ is supported in part through the Conquer Cancer Foundation, as well as supporters that include Amgen; Astellas; AstraZeneca; Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Cancer Treatment Centers of America®; Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation; Genentech BioOncology™; HELSINN; Janssen Oncology; Lilly; Raj Mantena, RPh; Novartis Oncology; Pfizer Oncology; Thomas G. Roberts, Jr., MD and Susan M. DaSilva; and Susan G. Komen®.
In November 2016, AstraZeneca became a founding enterprise partner with CancerLinQ Discovery.
