The 2nd Meeting of the European Myeloma Network (EMN2021) is organized as a virtual event on March 3-6, 2020. Featuring the latest news about diagnosis and treatment of myeloma and novel insights into the biology of the disease, this meeting will allow hematology professionals to exchange knowledge and ideas in order to improve the clinical management of myeloma.
Pieter Sonneveld, ErasmusMC
“Multiple Myeloma is the second most common hematologic malignancy in Europe. In the past ten years, several novel MM drugs have appeared, which have significantly improved the survival of MM patients. Despite these advances, the vast majority of patients eventually relapse, and the disease remains largely incurable. HARMONY researchers are combining data of thousands of MM patients, with the ultimate goal to improve MM treatment by allowing physicians to match patient profiles with the most promising treatment strategy.”
Maria-Victoria Mateos, Institute for Biomedical Research of Salamanca (IBSAL)
"To this end, the EMN and HARMONY are collaborating closely. The EMN has helped HARMONY to identify data sets of patients with MM. As a result, the HARMONY Big Data Platform already contains data from more than 7,000 MM cases and this figure will rise to 12-14,000 cases in the near future.”
Mario Boccadoro, University of Turin
“These data are being used to answer pressing research questions. For instance, the data sets have been used to improve the prognostication of newly diagnosed patients with MM. This collaborative effort of many European partners will be presented as an e-poster at EMN2021. Additional research projects will soon be launched.”
Myeloma Patients Europe (MPE) is part of the HARMONY Patient Cluster, a unique group of seven European Patient Umbrella Organizations working in the different areas of hematological diseases within the HARMONY Alliance.
Solène Clavreul, Myeloma Patients Europe:
“HARMONY gives MPE a unique chance to make a difference in the area of big data in hematology. With the HARMONY Big Data Platform, we can collaborate with researchers to address questions that matter to the myeloma patient community. For example, we can link data on quality of life and patient-reported outcomes to specific treatments and therefore see how these treatments affect patients’ everyday lives. In addition, we can encourage clinicians to include these particular data in future studies to make sure that not only treatment efficacy will be assessed in future projects, but also the impact the lives of patients.”
Watch the video interviews: Role of MPE in HARMONY > | What kind of research patients can develop within HARMONY >
Useful links
Big Data accelerate better and faster treatment for Patients with Hematologic Malignancies |The HARMONY Alliance is a Public-Private Partnership [HARMONY & HARMONY PLUS] funded by Innovative Medicines Initiative. HARMONY uses big data technologies to improve the treatment of blood cancers i.e. Hematologic Malignancies. Key outstanding questions in the blood cancer field can only be answered by studying large numbers of patients. Therefore, the HARMONY Alliance developed the HARMONY Big Data Platform, assembling harmonized clinical data from approx. 60.000 European patients. This will enable HARMONY researchers to characterize the molecular landscape of the various blood cancers, understand their pathophysiology, and identify novel drug targets. In addition, it will allow to reliably predict disease course and drug response for subgroups of patients. Ultimately, this should result in tools to rapidly select the most promising treatment strategy for a particular patient. In parallel, the HARMONY Alliance is developing core outcome sets for blood cancers.
Co-operative working groups, hospitals and academic institutions are invited to collaborate and contribute data to the HARMONY Alliance.
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Public-private partnership for Big Data in Hematology
HARMONY and HARMONY PLUS are 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. Funding is received from the IMI 2 Joint Undertaking and is listed under grant agreement for HARMONY No. 116026 and grant agreement for HARMONY PLUS No. 945406. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).
HARMONY Coordination Office
Institute of Biomedical Research of
Salamanca (IBSAL)
Salamanca, Spain
HARMONY Communications
European Hematology Association (EHA)
The Hague, The Netherlands
