Given the mass of resources and huge investments already made in research and development we have only just begun to make a dent in easing the mortality burden resulting from various cancers.

Despite the excellent progress that has been achieved to date and the introduction of innovative new therapies in the past couple of years there is still "more than 8.2 million lives that are lost to cancer every year around the world," Charles Hugh-Jones, chief medical officer, Sanofi U.S., told BioWorld Insight.

To help reduce that number new approaches and insights are clearly needed.

One of the keys to the design of more efficient cancer trials and ultimately better therapies may lie in mining unused data sets that have sat idle on the shelves of biopharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations and in academia. It would make sense to try and pool this data into a resource that is freely accessible.

That is the rationale behind an ambitious initiative launched recently. Project Data Sphere (PDS) is a new data sharing platform established as an independent not-for-profit initiative of the CEO Roundtable on Cancer's Life Sciences Consortium (LSC).

Hugh-Jones, who is helping drive the project, said that they already have received nine data sets representing 4,000 individual case records and another 25 datasets have already been pledged that would swell the number of individual records to about 15,000.

Sanofi has provided three phase III comparator arm data sets on prostate cancer and also is examining trial data in multiple other tumor types for potential submission.

Sanofi has been involved from the project's inception, collaborating with legal and privacy experts, as well as clinicians, commercial institutions and patient representatives to address historical barriers to data sharing and build an optimal framework to share data responsibly.

Other data sets have been provided by Astrazeneca plc, Bayer AG, Celgene Corp., Janssen Research and Development, an affiliate of Johnson & Johnson, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Pfizer Inc. PDS is also currently working with these and other organizations, including the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (sponsored by the National Cancer Institute), Amgen Inc., and Quintiles to provide additional cancer data sets.

In addition to the data, the project also is providing a state-of-the art analytics platform from the SAS Institute Inc. (SAS) to offer powerful analytic tools to registered users.

The next phase in the build out of the PDS will be to add a social media overlay that allows people not only to access the data and analyze it, but to form groups in a crowd sourcing setting that will allow for specific projects such as standards development and disease modelling to be undertaken.

To encourage participation within the crowd environment, PDS will run a series of competitions – starting with a focus on prostate cancer in collaboration with the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Sage Bionetworks and The Dream Project, said Hugh-Jones.

There are seven data sets relating to prostate cancer already available in the database. There are plenty more too because the PDS team undertook a study to map all of the phase III prostate cancer data sets that have been run during the past few years and they were surprised to find that there were 84, Hugh-Jones explained.

The task is to try and tap into these unused resources.

Overall, Hugh-Jones said that they have been excited by the pick-up and enthusiasm in which people have embraced the project. It emphasizes that initiatives such as these are clearly needed as much more can be achieved working collaboratively versus trying to solve problems on an individual basis.

SHARING DATA FINDING FAVOR

The concepts of collaboration and data sharing are certainly finding favor in the industry.

At the beginning of this month, for example, Astrazeneca and Glaxosmithkline plc (GSK) said they are both forming partnerships with publicly funded research bodies to set up new centers for early stage drug research in Cambridge, UK.

GSK, for example, has partnered with the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute to establish the Center for Therapeutic Target Validation (CTTV). The basic goal is to mine genomics, proteomics, chemistry and disease biology data to find new therapeutic targets. (See BioWorld Today, April 1, 2014.)

The CTTV will apply the analytical techniques of big data to improve understanding of potential drug targets thrown up by genome sequencing in advance of starting compound discovery.

"By changing our business model, taking a more open-minded approach to sharing information and forging collaborations like the CTTV, we believe there is an opportunity to accelerate development of new drugs," according to Patrick Vallance, president of Pharmaceuticals R&D at GSK.

Johnson & Johnson, of New Brunswick, N.J., reported that its subsidiary, Janssen Research and Development LLC, has entered into an agreement with Yale School of Medicine's Open Data Access (YODA) Project that will extend its commitment to sharing clinical trials data to enhance public health and advance science and medicine. YODA will serve as an independent body to review requests from investigators and physicians seeking access to anonymized clinical trials data and make final decisions on data sharing.

Clearly there is a recognition for the need to create networks between academia, research institutions and companies as well co-opt organizations in supportive disciplines such as mathematics and computer science in order for new knowledge to be generated, Hugh Jones concluded.