Not-for-profit launches data sharing platform
The Life Sciences Consortium of the not-for-profit CEO Roundtable on Cancer launched a data sharing platform to enable researchers to access de-identified, patient-level data from the comparator arms of Phase III cancer trials from academia and industry. Independent researchers and researchers affiliated with companies, hospitals and institutions will be able to access data free of charge through the initiative, which is called Project Data Sphere LLC. The website will also contain protocols, data descriptions and case report forms. Software services company SAS Institute Inc. (Cary, N.C.) will provide analytic tools to registered users.
Project Data Sphere has nine data sets covering 3,500 patients available. AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NYSE:AZN), Bayer AG (Xetra:BAYN), Celgene Corp. (NASDAQ:CELG), the Janssen Research and Development LLC unit of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), Sanofi (Euronext:SAN; NYSE:SNY) and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center all provided initial data sets. One of the goals of the project is to use the data to improve the design of cancer clinical trials. The initiative said an additional 25 data sets are "coming soon." ...