Home> News> #bigdataforbloodcancer blog: 100,000 Patient data sets: The value of data sharing to accelerate blood cancer research.

#bigdataforbloodcancer blog: 100,000 Patient data sets: The value of data sharing to accelerate blood cancer research.

January 27, 2022 13:33 - x 00, 0 - 00:00

#bigdataforbloodcancer, Big Data Platform

With almost 100,000 patient data sets identified and 63,000 already transferred to the HARMONY Big Data Platform, the HARMONY Alliance is fully equipped to facilitate state-of-the-art research into blood cancers.

In this blog, we highlight the opportunities that this unique research infrastructure offers to scientists, physicians, patients, and others.



Big Data Platform

The HARMONY Big Data Platform is a unique research infrastructure, with a data lake and advanced big data analytic tools, that is being used to accelerate the development of more effective treatments for patients with Hematologic Malignancies (blood cancers). More than 100,000 patient data sets have been identified now and over 63,000 have already been transferred to the Big Data Platform. The data sets have been shared by Partners and Associated Members of the HARMONY Alliance.

The HARMONY data lake is one of the largest databases of its kind and it is still growing. Careful procedures have been installed to ensure the anonymization and the quality of the data. In addition, HARMONY’s data scientists have developed sophisticated methods for data harmonization and analysis.


Pressing research questions

Leading research teams are using this wealth of information to answer critical questions about blood cancers that cannot be addressed with other methods. Among other things, the results may allow physicians to determine the prognosis of patients more precisely and to tailor the treatment choice to the prognosis.


The importance of data sharing

The HARMONY Big Data Platform is a central data base where the anonymous data donated by HARMONY Partners and HARMONY Associated Members is collected securely – following all legal and ethical requirements – harmonized and then analyzed. The HARMONY Alliance is a partnership of more than 100 European hospitals, research institutes, medical associations, patient organizations, pharmaceutical companies, regulatory agencies, and IT companies. In the past five years, the HARMONY Alliance has demonstrated the enormous progress that can be achieved by data sharing.


Exciting results

HARMONY has already achieved fascinating research results in its mission towards better and faster treatment for patients with Hematologic Malignancies. Some examples:


Join us

We encourage European co-operative working groups, hospitals, companies and academic institutions to collaborate and contribute data. Become a HARMONY Alliance Associated Member and join us in the effort to improve the care for blood cancer patients. What we offer:

Read more how to become involved > 
Not a data provider, but still interested to become involved? Join our network and subscribe to our newsletters and invitations >


#bigdataforbloodcancer: Accelerating Better and Faster Treatment for Patients with Hematologic Malignancies.

The HARMONY Alliance is a Public-Private Partnership for Big Data in Hematology including over 100 organizations such as European medical associations, hospitals, research institutes, patient organizations, pharmaceutical and IT companies. HARMONY uses Big Data analytics to accelerate the development of more effective treatments for blood cancer patients. The HARMONY Alliance is funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) (now called Innovative Health Initiative, IHI) of the European Commission and is currently running two projects: HARMONY (January 2017-June 2023) and HARMONY PLUS (October 2020-September 2023). In addition to the research projects that exploit the HARMONY Big Data Platform, the HARMONY Alliance is running Delphi surveys to develop core outcome sets (COS) for HMs, as well as Health Technology Assessment projects and multi-stakeholder activities.


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