Companies Capturing Attention at BIO-IT World 2016

Sarah PozekApril 19, 2016 By Sarah Pozek, Director of Life Sciences, DRI

As we continue to grow our Life Science practice it is more important than ever to get the pulse of what is going on in the industry, which is why I was so excited to head to Bio-IT World this year. It did not disappoint! All of the chatter at the conference was around Precision Medicine/Genomics… software to support it, storage for the data derived from it and if/when we can expect to see consolidation occur. Definitely a space I will be keeping my eye on!

Bio IT WorldBelow are some of the companies that I’ve had my eye on the last few months that I was able to meet up with in person.

Genospace – Matt Fischer, VP of Sales and Marketing, was our first meeting of the show, and he definitely set the tone for the day with Genospace’s innovative product offering. Their mission to make biomedical data useful and usable by everyone is achieved through their comprehensive platform that enables interpretation, analysis of large clinical and research data sets, reporting and collaboration. This technology can be found in such big names as PathGroup, Seattle Children’s Hospital, Inova Healthcare and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. In addition to security, storage and a web-based platform, Genospace offers physician and patient portals. This is taken a step further in the form of their Patient Communities. These online forums are designed to drive engagement, education, communication and data management.
http://www.genospace.com/

Core Informatics – Coming off of a Best of Show win in 2015 for the Web-Based Services category, Core Informatics was once again a Best of Show nominee, this time for its Platform for Science Marketplace. This ground-breaking informatics solution was designed for unparalleled flexibility. The PFS Marketplace features apps which can be combined to form solutions for scientific domains and run on Core’s cloud-based platform infrastructure: the Platform for Science. New applications are constantly joining the PFS Marketplace. The most recent collections of apps are for:  Biopharmaceutical Drug Discovery, Genomics (including NGS), and Biobanking.
http://www.corelims.com/

Datalytic Solutions – Starting as an idea within the Mind Research Network, Datalytic Solutions has grown into a company all its own. While initially focusing on neuroscience, they have now expanded their offerings into other industries, such as telecommunications, genomics, healthcare, and workforce optimization. Their experience in managing exceedingly complex data sets guided them in developing a platform that can securely streamline and organize data, analyze hidden patterns, and predict future trends. I really enjoyed the example of Huntington’s Disease presented by Sergey Plis, VP for Research, and Eric Verner, Senior Data Scientist. Definitely worth a read on their website! http://datalyticsolutions.com/

ClinCapture – Recently I had the pleasure of doing a Thought Leader interview with ClinCapture’s (formerly Clinovo) CEO, Glenn Keet, so I was very excited about the opportunity to meet with Chief Technology Officer, Marc Desgrousilliers, at this year’s show. Marc’s paper called “Disrupting Clinical Trials in the Cloud” was a finalist for the Best Practice Awards. Disrupting is just what ClinCapture is doing with their cloud based eClinical system. This EDC system allows smaller companies to start and run their own clinical studies, without dealing with the ramp up time or expense of the standard technology. Not to mention that their “freemium” model completely eliminates the barrier to entry. At last count, there were over 1,000 studies utilizing this opportunity!
http://www.clincapture.com/

https://www.directrecruiters.com/uncategorized/blog/interview-with-glenn-keet-ceo-clinovo/

Biomatters – Keeping with the genomics theme, Biomatters has been offering solutions to translate genomic data into insight since 2004. Their platform, Geneious, was the most highly cited bioinformatics platform due to its innovation in the research community. It’s currently being used by all 20 of the top 20 Universities globally and seven of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies. http://www.biomatters.com/

Starfish – Spinning off from Cambridge Computers, Starfish offers end to end life cycle management for research data collections. This virtual global file system provides storage, data and collection management in one platform. Loved by scientists for its content classification and streamlined workflows and by storage administrators for its advanced automation, I think we can expect big things from them! Being newer to the industry, I also have to thank Enrico Palmerio and Don Preuss for their creative explanations and patience in explaining their technology (and for giving us a much needed moment to sit).
http://www.starfishstorage.com/

Lab7 – System efficiency was a big theme at BioIT. Lab7 identified this need in the lab space and has built an end to end platform that streamlines the lab’s workflow. Taking the lab’s multiple systems from data collection, through processing, analyzing, reporting to when it will be queried and putting them into a single, flexible platform is a giant leap up from traditional LIMS data management. What really sets Lab7 apart according to Varshal Dave, VP Sales and Marketing & Chief Product, Positioning, Promotion Officer, is their ability to integrate with existing systems and be customized to each client’s needs.
https://www.lab7.io/

DDN – Genetic sequencing is very compute and data heavy, leaving institutions with the challenge of clearing this bottleneck. Laura Shepard, Senior Director – Products and Vertical Markets, shared a particular example of how DDN’s solutions can help remedy this issue. Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City uses a rapid genome sequencing protocol as a diagnostic tool in the NICU. This innovative approach to diagnosing  genetic disorders in newborns used to take several days. Multiple enhancements – including a move to DDN storage which accounted for almost doubling the speed of the rapid genome testing phase of the process – will soon reduce the time from patient admission to preliminary diagnosis in the hands of the physician to the hospital’s goal of under 26 hours.

A talk by Children’s Mercy on their process, goals and outcomes to date can be found here. http://www.ddn.com/

Nexsan – A global leader in storage, back up and data management solutions that focuses on connecting a workforce as seamlessly and securely as possible has found themselves another niche in the Healthcare/Life Science industry. The vast amounts of patient and participant data needing to be stored and retained in an environment that meets HIPAA/HITECH regulations in these industries creates a unique set of issues. Nexsan presented its newest answer to these challenges at BioIT this year. Their newest product Transporter is able to deliver the cloud experience that users demand while IT is still able to have full control (think Dropbox without the fees plus more security). Bonus: it works on mobile devices.
http://www.nexsan.com/

Signet Accel – Co-Founded by Dr. Philip R.O. Payne, PhD, FACMI and Dr. Peter J. Embi, MD, MS, FACP, FACMI, Signet Accel’s Avec platform was developed and refined over 12 years at The Ohio State University (Go Buckeyes!). Offering true interoperability, this platform allows for analysis of even the most complex, distributed healthcare data in a highly secure and controlled environment. I had the pleasure of speaking with COO, Dave Billiter and Dr. Payne at this year’s conference. Dave’s unique skillset and experience combined with Dr. Payne’s vast industry knowledge made for a truly interesting conversation. Definitely a company to keep an eye on!
http://signetaccel.com/

Whitepaper by Dr. Payne: http://resources.signetaccel.com/data-driven-approaches-to-improving-health?portalId=1739321&hsFormKey=1ace81c2d66fea09ec709f42bca1ff9c&submissionGuid=12cd5b24-d8a1-4fd8-8de6-ca8d58066ac3#module_14543409480658952

Eagle Genomics – The release of Eagle’s new solution, eaglediscover, was honored with a new product award for Knowledge Management at this year’s show. Building upon eaglecore, this new web-based platform allows pharmaceutical and biotech firms to most effectively use their scientific data. Instead of spending time “data wrangling” customers are able to focus on the scientific interpretation removing the threat of “data analysis paralysis” by enabling the exploration of meta-data rather than raw-data. This system of providing prioritized data selection will encourage re-use and create more valuable data sets.
https://www.eaglegenomics.com/

RCH Solutions – Around since 1991, RCH Solutions serves the Life Science industry as a trusted partner in offering hardware, software and consulting solutions. Supported by a team of professionals, it is these services that focus on “making all the innovation work in the real world” as Phil Eschallier, Director of Managed Services, so eloquently explained. With Life Science/HIT being such a dynamic industry, it is so important to have a partner like RCH that offers a single point of contact for guidance, support, security and integration.

http://rchsolutions.com/

Being my first time at BioIT I was absolutely blown away by the innovation. Matt Fischer from Genospace said it best, “Precision Medicine is today where the computer was in 1972… everything we learn shows us how much further we have to go.”

The next trade show I am planning on attending is DIA in Philadelphia…if you are interested in having your company highlighted in my recap, please contact me: 440-996-0597/ spozek@directrecruiters.com.

Comments are closed.