IBM and Genomics England Forge New Partnership to Transform Patient Care

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Genomics, the study of how your genes interact with the external world, is transforming how medical science works. England is leading the world in using this information in the healthcare system, enabling clinicians to bring these insights to determine the treatment for a particular patient – this is precision medicine. Understanding genomes can provide evidence to help diagnose disease more quickly and specifically, particularly in cancer and rare diseases. This understanding of disease is important to researchers working to develop new diagnostic tests and treatments – small changes in a genome can show how to target treatments to help more patients in future.

With the code of the human body written in our genes, genomics enables us to unveil the basis of disease, and understand different responses to treatment in a much more personalised way. As we move into this new era, Genomics England is one of the leading organisations around the world in driving this transformation and building the capability and technology to enable more evidence-based diagnostics and treatments for patients.

Genomics England and IBM are delighted to announce that IBM has been selected as a strategic technology partner for Genomics England over 18 months. Genomics England’s services are growing rapidly, providing researchers access to genomic datasets to enable scientific discovery. A technology provider was required to support this rapid expansion, enabling the consumption of AWS cloud services and AI capabilities. IBM will work with Genomics England in three key areas:

• Refine the clinical user interface and enable swift access to genomic data stores: as the software development partner, IBM will work to accelerate improvements in genomic interpretation services for patients and support enhancements in data science and bioinformatics processes. IBM will ensure the clinician experience is effective, efficient and speeds the rollout to new, approved users through intuitive design.
• Support adoption of cloud capabilities into a hybrid cloud: as Genomics England’s data sets and services grow, AWS cloud will allow rapid scalability to meet the needs of the many users of Genomics England’s data and interpretation services. Supporting the in-house team, IBM will bring a wealth of experience in AWS to ensure the security and automation of High-Performance Computing and Cloud services through this period of rapid growth.
• Service management wrap: with increased consumers of services and a move towards providing seven days per week service, IBM will bring experience of running large-scale, stable, supportable and sustainable IT services to Genomics England.

IBM is committed to supporting Genomics England’s goals of enabling clinicians to provide world-leading diagnoses and treatments services to NHS patients and accelerating scientific discovery to transform care into the future.

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