PatientsLikeMe signs five-year data access deal with Genentech | mobihealthnews

"Boston-based PatientsLikeMe, a hub for crowd-sourced patient data and an open research platform, has announced its most wide-reaching pharma partnership yet, a five-year agreement to share data with Genentech, a division of Roche ... PatientsLikeMe has opened up its data to pharmaceutical companies several times in the past. They worked with Sanofi to recruit for clinical trials a year ago, a similar arrangement to one Merck made with the company in August of 2012. Last summer, PatientsLikeMe announced a partnership with clinical consulting firm inVentiv Health to use the platform for clinical trial recruitment for InVentiv’s pharmaceutical clients. They also launched an open-participation research platform with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation last year.  However, past partnerships have all been limited in scope to a particular product or disease area. The Genentech deal, which offers the pharma company access to all PatientsLikeMe’s deidentified data for an undisclosed fee, is more wide-reaching ... The partnership will allow PatientsLikeMe to move more into oncology, an area of focus for Genentech, than they have been in the past. Genentech will have access to to PatientsLikeMe’s network 'to enable cross-sectional research and broader discovery of patient insights,' according to the press release. The company will also be able to search the data set more effectively and start their own research projects on the platform. They will also be able to use PatientsLikeMe’s network to both inform patients about clinical trials and iterate clinical trial design with patient input ..."