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Hematology project aims for faster, better care for patients with blood diseases

Posted on 12 January 2017

Patients struggling with blood disorders may look forward to more rapid and efficient treatment from the outcomes of the HARMONY project, an initiative that aims to create a roadmap for better access and care for patients with various blood diseases with the use of big data.

The Epidemiology and Cancer Statistics Group, led by Prof Eve Roman, is one of 51 partners from 11 European countries, including 7 pharmaceutical companies to take part in the project, HARMONY, which will put together anonymous patient data to unlock valuable knowledge on multiple myeloma (MM), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL), myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and blood disorders in infants and children.

HARMONY will build on pre-existing, long-lasting collaborations between academics, clinicians, patient organisations and the pharmaceutical industry. It will further advance management of these diseases through a more efficient process of treatment development and rapid decision-making. The expected outcome will be better prognosis and quicker improved treatment decisions.

The project brings together key players in the clinical, academic, patient, HTA (health technology assessment), regulatory, economical, ethical and pharmaceutical fields to: 

  • Developing a data sharing platform that empowers clinicians and policy stakeholders to improve decision-making
  • Establishing a network reflecting the European HMs landscape
  • Defining clinical endpoints and standard outcomes in ALL (paediatric & adult), NHL, MM, AML, CLL, MDS
  • Alignment of key stakeholders on relevance of these outcomes (policy makers, payers, patients)
  • Providing means for analysing complex data sets comprising different layers of information
  • Identifying specific markers for early registration of innovative and effective therapies for HMs

The HARMONY project's final deliverable is a big data platform that will integrate disease information in order to better understand the diseases and how to treat most efficiently. HARMONY will achieve this from a pan-European perspective by uniting and aligning European stakeholders and key opinion leaders in the field. The five-year project will start in January 2017 and is funded through the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI); Europe's largest public-private initiative aiming to speed up the development of better and safer medicines for patients.

 

Notes to editors:

Contact information: Harmonyoffice@ibsal.es

Partners in HARMONY

Project management

Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Salamanca (IBSAL), Spain

Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Hospital La Fe de Valencia (HULAFE), Spain

Celgene International II SARL, Switzerland

Novartis, Switzerland

Synapse Research Management Partners, S.L. (SYNAPSE), Spain

 Partners

Universitaet Ulm (UULM), Germany*

Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna (UNIBO), Italy*

European Hematology Association (EHA), The Netherlands*

ELN Foundation (ELN), Germany*

GMV Soluciones Globales Internet S.A.U. (GMV), Spain*

European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM), Belgium

Medizinische Universitaet - Wien (MUW), Austria*

Erasmus Universiteit Medisch Centrum Rotterdam (EMC), The Netherlands

University of Navarra (UNAV), Spain

Università degli Studi di Torino (UNITO), Italy

Stichting VUmc, The Netherlands

The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge (UCAM), United Kingdom

University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’ (URTV), Italy

Goethe University Frankfurt (GUF), Germany

Group for Research on Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (GRAALL), France

Jose Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC), Spain

European Research Initiative on CLL e.v. (ERIC), Italy

Masaryk University (MU), Czech Republic

Fundacio privada Institut D’investigacio Oncologica de Vall-Hebron (VHIO), Spain

The Lymphoma Scientific Association (LYSA), France

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet - Muenchen (LMU-Muenchen), Germany

Barts Health NHS Trust (BHT), United Kingdom

Groupe Francophone des Myélodysplasies (GFM), France

Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet - Duesseldorf (UDUS), Germany

Fondazione Italiana per lo studio delle sindromi mielodisplastiche onlus (FISMonlus), Italy

University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UNEW), United Kingdom

German Society of Pediatric Oncology-Hematology GmbH gemeinnützig (GPOH), Germany

Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù (OPBG), Italy

University of York (UoY), United Kingdom

European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), Belgium

European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT), The Netherlands

Flanders Institute of Biotechnology (VIB), Belgium

University of Helsinki (UH), Finland

Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), France

Genome Research Limited (GRL-SANGER), United Kingdom

MediSapiens Ltd (MS), Finland

MLL Munich Leukemia Laboratory GmbH (MLL), Germany

LeukaNET (LeNET), Germany*

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), United Kingdom

Agencia Española de Medicamentos y Productos Sanitarios (AEMPS), Spain

Bundesinstitut für Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte (BfArM), Germany

Amgen, United Kingdom*

Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Belgium*

Bayer Pharma Aktiengesellschaft, Germany*

Menarini Ricerche S.p.A., Italy*

Takeda, United Kingdom*

 

*Work package leaders and co-leaders