New Initiative Takes on Multiple Sclerosis with Big Data

GNS Healthcare, a big data analytics company, has formed a new alliance with non-profit patient and research groups intended to uncover the genetic and biologic causes of the complex autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis and other diseases.

Backed by a $5.4 million sponsorship from Janssen Research & Development, Orion Bionetworks will use GNS Healthcare’s Reverse Engineering and Forward Simulation platform to analyze patient data pieced together from alliance members including the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis, the Institute for Neurosciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and PatientsLikeMe. The Marin Community Foundation’s Multiple Sclerosis Project Fund will coordinate the project and Magali Haas, currently chief science and technology officer of the non-profit One Mind for Research, will lead Orion.

“I think data-driven models like this are the future of discoveries in healthcare and the development of new drugs. It’s just too slow otherwise,” says Colin Hill, CEO of GNS. “People accepted that before, because there just wasn’t any other way. Now I think the walls of the industry are going to come crumbling down, replaced by something much more data-driven and hypothesis-free, something that’s desperately needed.”
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-new_initiative_takes_on_multiple_sclerosis_with_big_data.html