Sensyne Health and the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute to establish world-leading research alliance using data science and clinical AI for the patient-centred management and treatment of chronic disease

Sensyne Health and the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute to establish world-leading research alliance using data science and clinical AI for the patient-centred management and treatment of chronic disease

Unique three-year alliance established between industry and academia to advance the analysis and interpretation of unique NHS datasets in chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease using clinical artificial intelligence (AI) to improve care and accelerate the discovery and development of new medicines

Research collaboration will create unique new data sets in addition to those already available for analysis by Sensyne Health and will build on Sensyne’s existing capability in clinical AI

Oxford, UK; 28 January 2019: Sensyne Health plc (LSE:SENS) (“Sensyne”), the British Clinical AI technology company, today announces a three-year collaboration with the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute (BDI) to establish a world-leading research alliance to develop and evaluate the use of clinical artificial intelligence (clinical AI) and digital technology to understand the complexities of chronic disease. No financial terms were disclosed.

Initially the collaboration will focus on chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease, diseases with significant and growing burdens on society with the potential for the discovery and development of new medicines and improved pathways of patient care within the NHS. The programme may extend into other chronic diseases in the future.

The three-year research programme will draw on BDI’s expertise in population health, clinical informatics and machine learning and will be facilitated by access to anonymised longitudinal datasets for those patients in the NHS Trusts which builds on Sensyne Health’s existing capabilities through its Clinical AI and Strategic Research Agreements, as well as the data generated by Sensyne’s digital health applications for the management of chronic disease. It will also draw on the expertise of researchers in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford in developing technology for collecting clinical-grade healthcare data at scale.

The research will focus on two major elements to derive new datasets that capture vital information from patient-clinician consultations during long-term management of chronic disease. This work will facilitate the use of clinical AI to understand the complexities of chronic disease and hence derive insights to accelerate drug discovery and development and improve pathways of patient care.

• Automated, real-time translation of physician notes into a longitudinal, semantic structure suitable for analysis by clinical AI.
   
• Remote patient monitoring using digital health tools and wearables to assess disease progression and inform clinical care.

In addition, the alliance will explore the clinical associations and consequences of diurnal changes in blood pressure, extending Sensyne’s in-house project, SH-001, which identified nocturnal surges in blood pressure in a sub-set of hospital inpatients.

Alongside this, the alliance will foster the development of an effective R&D and commercialisation pathway between the two organisations and a growing network of collaborating NHS Trusts. Under Sensyne’s unique business model the commercial value created from the research will be shared with the participating NHS Trusts and the University of Oxford via a shared equity ownership in Sensyne Health and a shared royalty on revenues.

Research will be undertaken to the highest standards of information governance and data security in accordance with NHS principles and data protection legislation.

Lord (Paul) Drayson, CEO of Sensyne Health, said, “This new collaboration with the BDI is designed to apply world-class data science to the growing burden of chronic disease on society, and create an effective partnership between the NHS, industry and academia that delivers scalable improvements to patient care, accelerates the discovery and development of new medicines and shares the commercial value created with our partner NHS Trusts and the University of Oxford.”

Professor Martin Landray, Deputy Director of the Big Data Institute and Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, commented, “This new collaboration sets out to improve our understanding of common chronic diseases, identify opportunities for better treatment, and enhance the quality and efficiency of clinical care. This work will provide benefits for individual patients, the NHS, and population health.”
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Notes to editors

About Sensyne Health

Sensyne Health plc is a healthcare technology company that creates value from accelerating the discovery and development of new medicines and improving patient care through the analysis of real-world evidence from large databases of anonymised patient data in collaboration with NHS Trusts. These anonymised patient data are ethically sourced in that any analysis of anonymised patient data (and hence the Company’s access to it) must be pre-approved for each programme on a case-by-case basis by the relevant NHS Trusts. This is to ensure that the purpose of the anonymisation and the proposed analysis are subject to appropriate ethical oversight and information governance, including conformance with NHS principles, UK data protection law and applicable regulatory guidance. Sensyne Health is an early signatory to the Department of Health and Social Care’s‘Initial Code of Conduct for data-driven health and care technology’.

Sensyne Health is listed on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange (SENS.L).

About the Big Data Institute

The Big Data Institute is located in the Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Informatics and Discovery at the University of Oxford. It is an interdisciplinary research centre that focuses on the analysis of large, complex data sets for research into the causes, consequences, prevention and treatment of disease. Research is conducted in areas such as genomics, population health, infectious disease surveillance, and the development of new analytic methods. The Big Data Institute is supported by grants from the Medical Research Council, the Engineering, Physical Sciences Research Council, the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund, the National Institute for Health Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, Health Data Research UK, and Wellcome Trust, and by philanthropic donations from the Li Ka Shing and Robertson Foundations. Further details are available at www.bdi.ox.ac.uk