Some slides from our Blockchain for a better Healthcare meetup
On the 02.10, PositiveBlockchain.io has organized the6th edition of its Blockchain for Social Good Berlin (BSGB) series. Follow-up the group on meetup.com here to receive future event invitations.
The topic this time was about Blockchain for a better Healthcare, in partnership with the Impact Hub Berlin, BerChain (Berlin Blockchain Association), the GIZ Blockchain Lab and Avertim (European consulting in Life Sciences). We had great speakers from startups Ribbon, IKU, HIT Foundation and PharmaTrace. We have summarized some slides and added new ones here.
Blockchain in Healthcare & Pharma — better late than never
Although healthcare complexity and somewhat disruption-resistance doesn’t help adoption, there is a lot going on at the moment to leverage new technologies for a better Healthcare. Especially related to patient data ownership, cybersecurity, drug traceability, clinical trials, chronical disease treatment adherence, real life evidence, etc.
Investments coming in from VCs
A blockchain for healthcare investment article reported for 2018 at least 5 ICOs above $15 million each (Shivom.io, Solve.Care, Medicalchain, Medibloc, Lympo) and 10 VC deals above $1,5 million each (VeraTrak, Embleema, Chronicled, Professional Credentials Exchange, Nebula Genomics, Decent, LunaDNA, Hu-manity, Curisium, Hashed Health).
Great mobilization from institutions to support blockchain innovation, R&D and ecosystem creation
The EU Commission has been investing already €180 million in blockchain-related projects, according to an EU delegate who presented during a EU Blockchain Observatory workshop in Frankfurt which we attended on the 04.10.2019.
Back in October 2018, the EU Parliament urged the Commission to take action and invest in research for blockchain adoption. The 2017/2772(RSP) resolution on blockchain was already very specific on potential benefits of the technology for healthcare.
Under theH2020 eHealth Cybersecurity Research and Innovation effort, a call for proposals for improving cybersecurity in hospitals has been launched in 2018. While the call did not mention blockchain, among the 40 submitted proposals, 15 included blockchain, and among the 7 selected for funding, 5 had a blockchain component:
- FeatureCloud (immutability and management of patient rights)
- SERUMS (lineage and provenance of personal medical data)
- SPHINX (cybersecurity toolkit medical, clinical or health available infrastructures which builds blockchain-based countermeasures mechanisms)
- PANACEA (toolkits for dynamic cyber security assessment and preparedness of Healthcare ICT infrastructures, with blockchain components for the storage and sharing of clinical data)
- CUREX (blockchain infrastructure ensuring the integrity of the risk assessment process and of all data transactions that occur between the diverse range of stakeholders).
The industry is also following very closely the following projects:
- My Health My Data: a Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Action which aims at fundamentally changing the way sensitive data are shared. MHMD is aiming to become a true information marketplace, based on new mechanisms of trust and direct, value-based relationships between EU citizens, hospitals, research centers and businesses.
- MELLODY or “Machine Learning Ledger Orchestration for Drug Discovery”: a private-public consortium supported by the EU IMI (IMI Innovative Medicines Initiative) gathering 10 Pharmaceutical companies (Amgen, Astellas, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Merck KgaA, Novartis, and Institut de Recherches Servier); 2 academic universities (KU Leuven, Budapesti Muszaki es Gazdasagtudomanyi Egyetem); 4 subject matter experts (Owkin, Substra Foundation, Loodse, Iktos); and 1 large AI computing company (NVIDIA). The objectives of the drug-discovery consortium that hopes to eliminate the tradeoff between data sharing and security. MELLODDY developers will create a distributed deep learning model that can travel among these distinct cloud clusters, training on annotated data for an unprecedented 10 million chemical compounds. MELLODDY will also employ a blockchain ledger system so pharmaceutical partners can maintain visibility and control over the use of their datasets. Read more on this interesting article.
- Blockchain Enabled Healthcare: another IMI consortium is dragging a lot of attention from Pharmaceutical companies, since it gathers many key players who received an €18 million grant to research blockchain applications in four main areas or categories: supply chain, clinical trials, health data, and others (e.g. procurement).
Many use cases are being explored although the most promising ones are still ahead
Main use cases currently being explored by healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are in supply chain (track & trace drugs along the distribution & supply chains) or clinical data (smart contracts & access rights to grant different stakeholders access over patient data).
In most current pilots and projects, the patient is only marginally or not at all in control and ownership of its data. Fully patient-driven models are part of long-term applications which we see emerge, but for which we there are still many roadblocks and unclear business cases (how much will it cost? who will share these costs? what are the exact benefits?).
Growing startup ecosystem
PositiveBlockchain.io has already listed 120+ startups in its open-source database accessible here.
Roadblocks still on the path for wider adoption
- Bioethical questions around patient data ownership, treatment decision or patient data monetization
- Infrastructure maturity & cybersecurity for blockchain components themselves
- Raising awareness and educating key stakeholders and patients themselves — althought they should understand benefits and not all the technical layers of the technology
- Usability should not be affected by new technology such as blockchain, especially in healthcare market
- Data Standards for inter-operability are still missing, IEEE and other standard bodies are working on it
- Reglementation and regional harmonization
You can read the slides from the event + several ones added here.
Feel free to reach out to us to organize / speak / attend at future events, or help us progress in our blockchain for healthcare research!
We missed something or did a mistake in this article? You want to contributor to PositiveBlockchain, or work with us on projects/events? Let us know at hello@positiveblockchain.io
