CEO Roundtable on Cancer XVIII
An enormous amount of work occurred in the past year, said Dr. Reese. The Project Data Sphere® platform expanded the number of patients covered by 20 percent, with more than a third of the records coming from experimental arms of clinical trials. That statistic is noteworthy because the PDS platform launched with only control arm data.
Another telling statistic was that the number of publications based on PDS data rose 44% and reflected progress toward the goal of fostering independent research on the database.
“Outside groups are accessing the database and generating a publication without direct involvement of Project Data Sphere. This now is a turning point. This is the first time that a large number of independent publications have appeared. We anticipate this will snowball in the coming years. It represents the culmination of the idea that if you build it, they will come. We sense now they are actually coming.” - Dr. David M. Reese
Dr. Rothenberg recognized four new employees added to the PDS staff. He said 2020 objectives for the platform include building on the existing partnership with SAS, expanding data types gathered on the platform (images, registries and genomic information), expanding data volume, improving usability of embedded analytical tools and improving metadata to enable search capability.
“This (PDS database) is an incredible resource. … You can log on today, and tomorrow you will have access to the entire data set. There is no big submission of what you are going do with it or anything. It’s been incredible you can do that and do it so quickly and get to the data you want. It has been in existence 5 1/2 years and nothing negative has emerged from it.” - Dr. Antonio Fojo, Co-Director, Adrenal Center, Columbia University Medical Center
