The University of Helsinki in Finland recently announced the creation of a new research centre dubbed iCAN – the Digital Precision Cancer Medicine Platform – that aims to use an existing data lake and other faculties to build a precision cancer medicine toolbox.

According to Miikka Korja, associate professor of neurosurgery at Helsinki University Hospital and chief information officer at Flagship iCAN, this is part of the “early steps” in building a “novel ecosystem”.

More than 25 companies have reportedly already expressed interest in working with the centre, including pharma companies and health tech startups.

The newest issue of the HIMSS Insights eBook, published at the beginning of this month, gave an insight into plans for the iCAN project, looking at examples of connected care and interoperability from around the world.

“The reason why iCAN has started in Finland is that our unique location offers the opportunity to combine digital health records with more classic cell and molecule-based cancer research,” Tomi Mäkelä, professor at the University of Helsinki and iCAN’s principal coordinator, told Insights.

The iCAN is one of the digital health initiatives that will also be showcased at the HIMSS Health 2.0 European conference taking place in Helsinki from 11-13 June this year.

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MobiHealthNews is a HIMSS Media publication.