Century Health to streamline Nira Medical’s MS datasets for research
AI platform will examine electronic records, curate data for researchers
Tech company Century Health has entered into a partnership to organize and clean Nira Medical‘s datasets from more than 3,000 people with multiple sclerosis (MS) to help make clinical data more available for researchers to explore insights toward developing new treatments.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Nira Medical to accelerate data curation and enrichment, with the goal that every patient’s journey can contribute to advancing care for the entire community,” Vish Srivastava, co-founder and CEO at Century Health, said in a company press release.
As part of the collaboration, Century Health will use its artificial intelligence (AI) platform to examine electronic health records and unlock data that have been difficult to analyze. The data, often locked in independent systems, are a gold mine for clinical research, but have been largely inaccessible.
“Using AI to unlock previously inaccessible patient data is not only accelerating the development of new treatments, it’s helping us generate insights for patients that have been historically underrepresented in clinical research,” Srivastava said.
The company will organize and clean raw data from Nira Medical’s network of clinics, assembling structured datasets that will be shared with partnering life sciences companies. This will let Nira Medical gain real-world insights into what treatments patients are receiving and their clinical outcomes without burdening clinical teams with data entry.
“This partnership with Century Health enables us to efficiently transform raw, unstructured data into actionable insights, at a time when real-world evidence is increasingly important for driving innovation and improving patient outcomes,” said Rebekah Foster, head of data at Nira Medical.
Accessing the data on MS
MS occurs when the immune system mistakenly launches an inflammatory attack against the myelin sheath, a fatty coating that protects nerve cells. As nerve cells become damaged, nerve signals can be interrupted or faulty, causing symptoms.
While there’s no cure for MS, many treatment options have become available in recent years. Every patient experiences MS in a unique way, however, meaning not all will respond well to the available medications. Also, existing therapies still fail to address many aspects of the disease and new treatments are needed.
With rich, detailed data, researchers can answer specific questions about how well existing treatments work in certain patients, which could help improve outcomes and bring new treatments to market faster.
“The ability to advance treatments for our patients — especially those living with a serious, chronic disease that impacts millions globally — supports our mission of providing increased access to effective care for neurological disorders,” Foster said.
The partnership will start with MS because Nira Medical has a large patient database and there are many available treatments. Century Health will organize the clinical records and notes into a standard format, de-identifying data to ensure patient privacy. Its platform will then deliver easy-to-use charts and other tools to highlight key clinical insights.
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