BC Platforms is a bioinformatics software company with research and development center in Helsinki, Finland, and sales offices in Basel, London, Boston and Vancouver. BC Platforms has recently executed an investment round in Switzerland.
Data management, integration of data and algorithms
BC Platforms aims to be the world’s leading genetic data management company in the life science industry, healthcare and academia. According to Tero Silvola, CEO of BC Platforms, the company integrates clinical data with genetic information in a scalable way. “We offer software that helps our customers to deal with big data management, data security, data sharing and data analysis.” In addition, BC Platforms provides genome analyses tools for researchers and clinicians.
BC Platforms got started in 1997 by developing a data management platform to collect genetic data related to diabetes from Scandinavia for a research project by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an American pharmaceutical company. From the company’s starting days and ever since the first whole human genome was sequenced in 2003, the cost of producing genomic data has plummeted. The price drop has made the bio-industries and healthcare to start looking into this technology in precision and preventive medicine.
Part of major research institutions and their genetic research
Today, personalized therapies and clinical decisions are leveraged by combining molecular and clinical data from a variety of sources. BC Platforms’ technology can integrate proprietary genomic data, molecular data and clinical information from individual patients and population studies for the use of both academia and the life science industry. Tero Silvola says: «We have sold our solution to more than 18 countries, made more than 100 installations and can say that BC Platforms is an important partner for our customers and their genetic research activities».
Thanks to their collaboration with analysis program developers, genotyping device manufacturers and hardware vendors, BC Platforms can offer great expertise in genetic and clinical data management and analysis. One of the most important areas where genomic and clinical data are integrated is biobanking. Biobanks are many times owned and operated by university hospital. The Universitätsspital Basel has the biggest biobank in Switzerland and is now starting to add genomic data into it. The combined data can be more easily utilized in academic research and in pharmaceutical R&D.
Basel is the new hub
The decision to open an office in Basel in August 2014 was made after analysing the ecosystem of different areas worldwide. «We realised that if you want to be a leader in our field, Basel, with strong research, industry and healthcare ecosystems, is the place to», says Mikael Muittari, Vice President, Sales and Marketing. « Basel is one of the major life science hubs, and is definitely well-connected to Boston and other similar hubs around the world.»
With the support of Basel Area, many business functions will be established in Switzerland and Basel in the near future. «We will start recruiting in Q3 onwards for our Basel office, as we need new people for marketing, business development, customer service and administration», Mikael Muittari adds.
Video explaining BC Platforms
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=damEa5XoNzk
