BC Platforms and NTT Group Announce Official Opening Ceremony for Exclusive Collaboration and Launch of Japanese Precision Medicine Platform

Zurich, Switzerland – 15 April 2024 - BC Platforms (BCP), a global leader in real world data, healthcare data management, and analytics, today announces an exclusive collaboration with NTT Life Science Corporation, a company in the medical field of the NTT Group, to accelerate data-driven medicine. Last week, in Japan, an official opening ceremony of a joint Tokyo facility was held, housed within NTT Life Science, which will drive and develop the Japan Precision Medicine Platform^TM (JPP). This marked the concrete beginning of the global partnership. The JPP has the power, for the first time in Japan to enable the usage of clinical data, ensuring the safe and efficient access, sharing and analysis of this data across the nation. JPP is a national medical data distribution platform to integrate, curate, and harmonize Japanese healthcare data enabled by BCP’s technology integrated with NTT’s global network and technology.  For official ceremony photos see (1).

This multiyear collaboration, announced on October 2023 (2), now gives exclusive rights in the Japanese market, under the JPP. The enablement of this technology in a multitenant model, where a single instance of a software application serves multiple customers, will introduce a national medical data distribution platform to integrate, curate, and harmonize Japanese healthcare data. This JPP will provide a safe & secure data collaboration environment where researchers can work across organizations, accelerating the development of new therapies, from oncology to rare diseases. The primary goal of the partnership is to provide a positive impact on patients through personalized medicine, through better use of real-world data (RWD), including identifying patients suitable for clinical trials.

"We are delighted that NTT Life Science will exclusively represent our technology in Japan. This powerful strategic partnership with NTT Group is a core element of our mission to be a leading real-world data, technology, and services provider,” said BCP’s Chairman of the Board, Laurent Samama. "By collaborating with one of the world's largest technology companies, we boost our ability to scale, and maximize, the value of our capabilities, as we build the world’s largest health data network.”

The partnership aims to create a system to enable better utilization of data through collaboration with government agencies and companies. It addresses Japan's rising medical costs and need for innovation in healthcare. By making RWD more accessible, the platform will support developing new therapies in a data-driven, evidence-based approach. It brings together four organizations based in Tokyo: NTT; NTT Life Science Corporation; New Medical Real World Data Research Organization Inc. (PRiME-R); and Bio-Xcelerator, Inc. The goal is to implement services by NTT Life Science built on BCP's technology.

“In the NTT Group medium-term management strategy ‘New value creation & Sustainability 2027 powered by IOWN’ (announced in May 2023) (3), we announced that we will proceed with new value creation through data-driven technology. One of our representative initiatives is this JPP. We would like to quickly create a market together with BCP, which has a global track record in the medical field, which is a growing market and an investment field for NTT," said Akiko Kudo, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Director, Executive Officer, Head of Alliance Division, Research and Development Marketing Division.

"We are committed to making a difference in precision medicine, by harnessing powerful data-driven insights. Our ambition is to transform global healthcare solutions, starting from Japan, where we have extensive experience in medical research. 47 medical institutions are engaged with PRiME-R for using CyberOncology®, and Genovision Dock® (4) is available in 59 medical institutions. In total, over 80,000 customers have been examined. We will leverage this strength to promote JPP," said Kouji Korekawa, President and CEO of NTT Life Science and President of PRiME-R.

"With NTT's innovative capabilities, we can offer global pharma companies access to real-world data, making it easier, faster, and more complete than any other alternative. We are delighted to be forming a combined, localized, team in Tokyo, in this unprecedented partnership with JPP, which will become a massive global medical data highway. NTT Life Science & PRiME-R have the network, the servers, the sites, and the know-how. Basically, they have everything right, and at scale too: the NTT Global Data Centre is the third largest data center operator in the market (5). We will add our technology onto their unmatched system and build the multi-tenant system that can supply any organization in Japan with our system for managing and harmonizing and analyzing their data and working on research on their data," said Nino da Silva, Managing Director APAC at BC Platforms.

References

(1): Official photograph from the opening ceremony: here

From L-R:

Ken Matsuzaki, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Vice President, Head of Healthcare & Medical Business Planning Office

Hideki Tsukuda, NTT Life Science, Senior Vice President, Member of the Board

Kouji Korekawa, President and CEO of NTT Life Science and President of PRiME-R

Kaj Työppönen, BC Platforms, Chief Financial Officer

Laurent Samama, BC Plaforms, Chairman of the Board

Akiko Kudo, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Senior Vice President, Head of Alliance Department, Research and Development Market Strategy Division, Member of the Board of the Company

Nino da Silva, BC Platforms, Managing Director, Asia

Masaaki Tabata, NTT Life Science, Vice President of Life Innovation Department, Member of the Board

(2): First press releases announcing the collaboration: 
https://www.bcplatforms.com/news/bc-platforms-partners-with-ntt-to-accelerate-data-driven-medicine-in-japan
https://group.ntt/en/newsrelease/2023/10/03/231003a.html

(3): New value creation & Sustainability 2027 powered by IOWN: https://group.ntt/jp/ir/mgt/managementstrategy/

(4): About Genovision®:  https://service.ntt-lifescience.co.jp/rpts/anonymous/aboutdna

(5): NTT IR DAY October 3, 2023: https://group.ntt/en/ir/library/presentation/institutional/

About NTT

NTT contributes to a sustainable society through the power of innovation. We are a leading global technology company providing services to consumers and businesses as a mobile operator, infrastructure, networks, applications, and consulting provider. Our offerings include digital business consulting, managed application services, workplace and cloud solutions, data center and edge computing, all supported by our deep global industry expertise. We are over $97B in revenue and 330,000 employees, with $3.6B in annual R&D investments. Our operations span across 80+ countries and regions, allowing us to serve clients in over 190 of them. We serve over 75% of Fortune Global 100 companies, thousands of other enterprise and government clients and millions of consumers.

About BC Platforms

BC Platforms provides its international life science and healthcare clients with tools, enabling valuable insights across the entire spectrum of research and development, from target identification to fulfilling post-marketing requirements. As a RWD solutions company, powered by leading technology platforms, the company is on a mission to deliver personalized medicines using RWD and analytics. The company’s acquisitions of Medexprim, in December 2023, and 4Pharma Ltd, in June 2023, have significantly expanded its ability to provide global biopharma partners with fast and secure access to Real-World clinical and imaging data assets across Europe, as well as new clinical research services for accelerating the translation of innovations into clinical practice. Taken together, these capabilities provide its customers with actionable insights to advance precision healthcare and conduct research and development more efficiently, thereby helping patients receive better treatments and care.

With our innovative technology we are creating a patient centric infinity loop between the life sciences and healthcare sectors. Data we generate, harmonize, and manage, from diverse biobanks and healthcare institutions, is made accessible for pharmaceutical and biotech companies to enhance their core strengths in research and development. In parallel, we enable stratification of patients towards targeted therapies, delivering on the promise of more personalized healthcare.

Founded in 1997 from a MIT Whitehead project spinoff, we have a strong scientific heritage underpinned by over 25 years of working in close collaboration with a network of leading researchers, developers, and industry partners. We have global operations with our headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, R&D in Espoo, Finland, and Singapore, as well as a presence in London, UK, Lund, Sweden, Toulouse, France and Boston, USA. For more information, visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn.