OncoDNA, a biotech company specialising in personalised medicine for patients with advanced cancers, has launched its online platform OncoKDM. This brings together the data generated by various cancer treatment centres.
After purchasing its Spanish distributor, on Wednesday, the Walloon start-up OncoDNA, specialising in personalised medicine for patients with metastatic cancers, based in the Gosselies Aeronautics Park, launched its online platform OncoKDM, a sort of "LinkedIn" for oncologists.
This tool is part of the Moncodaneum project supported financially by the Walloon Region. Directly inspired by the Mundaneum of the Belgian Paul Otlet, the precursor to the internet in paper form. OncoKDM consists in creating a "SaaS" (Software as a service), which is used to connect as many oncology centres as possible across Europe. The idea is to extend the comparative base by collecting as much data as possible. The ultimate aim will be to determine the best strategy for treating and monitoring patients with cancer.
OncoKDM is providing its expertise in interpreting raw sequencing data and laboratory tests in order to transform them into a report containing the data essential for treating patients. "We are the only ones who can incorporate these complex things", explained Jean-François Laes, the biotech firms' Chief Technological Officer.
The platform will constantly be fed with new data supplied by participating oncologists. It will work as an ever-changing database. In principle, it is simple to use as according to Jean-François Laes, "it is internet based. There is no investment to be made in information technology."
Created in 2012, OncoDNA, which has just moved to new premises next door to its previous facilities, now employs around fifty people. Its objective is to help oncologists all over the world with better set up and monitoring of metastatic cancer treatments by interpreting sample analyses performed by the neighbouring Institute of Pathology and Genetics.
