Scientific efforts to find cures for cancer will be severely hampered if the scientific community does not change the ways in which patient data is collected, shared, and analyzed. The development of targeted therapies and immunotherapies — the two biggest hopes for cancer cures — depend on the existence of large data sets comprising patients’ genetic and clinical information. Today, that data is fragmented and guarded in silos. Indeed, the well-kept secret in the cancer space is that progress in finding cures is being impeded as much by the lack of sharing by the players in the precision medicine ecosystem as it is by the stubbornness of the underlying science.
One Obstacle to Curing Cancer: Patient Data Isn’t Shared
Large data sets could lead to a breakthrough.
November 28, 2016