European cancer center Gustave Roussy partners with healthcare blockchain startup Embleema

Gustave Roussy Institut, Europe's leading cancer center, has entered into a partnership with healthcare blockchain network Embleema to develop blockchain-based health data sharing applications for oncology clinical research and development.

Based in France, Gustave Roussy Institut treats all cancers at every stage of life and offers its patients individualised care combining innovation and a humane approach. It brings together 3,100 professionals whose missions are care, research and teaching.

Founded in 2017, New York-based Embleema has launched PatientTruth, a healthcare blockchain platform that stores and distributes electronic medical records and allows patients to assemble their own medical history, with full control and access to personal data. Building on its proprietary blockchain technology, it is also developing a decentralized platform for data sharing in clinical research.

Under the partnership, Embleema will deploy its technology and develop new standards for real-world oncology studies at the cancer center.

“This strategic partnership will enable the integration of health data, and consolidation onto a real world evidence data exchange, that will enable patients of the Gustave Roussy Institut to access and control their data,” the press release stated.

“For the first time, healthcare data will become reusable for life sciences research, an important step forward in breaking data silos that typically slow down the development of new drugs.”

Professor Alexander Eggermont, General Director of the Gustave Roussy Institut, said that blockchain technology will allow real world data to be able to “evaluate the effectiveness and safety of treatments, and deliver new treatments to patients faster.”

"Our partnership with Embleema will define a new ethical model in drug development, so individual healthcare data may be used to further clinical research, in a transparent manner that fully respects patient rights,” he said.

Embleema has also formed a consortium that aims to define and provide solutions that standardize the secure collection and exchange of digital health data. Gustave Roussy will be one of the first centers to allow its patients to take part in this new exchange that allows regulators to assess the efficacy and safety of health products on an ongoing basis.