Universities lead healthy partnership

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is to partner Pittsburgh University and University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC) to form a new alliance which aims to use big data to detect potential outbreaks and create new intellectual property to generate spin-outs.

The collaborative effort, Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance (PHDA), is looking to leverage data taken from caring for individuals and utilise it to generate insights into diseases and other conditions. PHDA will be looking to draw on electronic health records, diagnostic imaging, prescriptions, genomic profiles, insurance records, and wearable device data. It hopes that the big data oversight will allow PHDA to detect potential disease outbreaks and allow them to alert healthcare professionals so they can conduct appropriate preparations.

PHDA is also aiming to generate new technologies and data-related healthcare innovations which can be used in generating new spin-outs from the alliance. Commercialisation will be managed by UPMC Enterprises, the tech transfer office of UPMC.

UPMC will be funding the project over the next six years, but will also draw on existing research grants at all three institutions. PHDA will also draw on resources from two research and development centres: CMU’s Centre for Machine Learning and Health, and Pittsburgh’s Centre for Commercial Applications of Healthcare Data.

Patrick Gallagher, chancellor at Pittsburgh University, said: “Through this partnership, our brilliant scientists at Pitt and CMU will have unprecedented resources for turning their innovative ideas into products and services that can truly better the lives of patients and society. The knowledge created here will result in the spin-off of many new companies and thousands of new jobs over the next decade.”