ONTOFORCE partners with Princess Máxima Center to facilitate more efficient pediatric oncology research with innovative data technology

ONTOFORCE, a leading provider of data and knowledge technology for life sciences has entered a partnership with the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology in Utrecht, the Netherlands, for the use of ONTOFORCE’s data and knowledge platform product, DISQOVER. The Princess Máxima Center will use DISQOVER to connect their siloed data sources in one harmonized platform enabling optimized data exploration and time and cost efficiencies. The contract follows an extensive pilot in 2022, involving a wide range of Princess Máxima Center researchers and clinicians who gained a detailed technical understanding of the DISQOVER technology and experienced first-hand how it can efficiently transform operations.

The Princess Máxima Center’s mission is to cure every child with cancer, with optimal quality of life. To achieve this, a fundamental pillar of the organization is to ensure an optimized exchange of data and knowledge between research and care units so cross-functional data can be optimally and securely found and accessed, in compliance with privacy and security policies. ONTOFORCE’s DISQOVER platform will facilitate this process, strengthening Princess Máxima Center’s data exploration capabilities and enabling them to uphold the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data principles as a research institution best practice. On top of the value that DISQOVER will bring in terms of efficiencies, innovation, and data democratization, ONTOFORCE’s team of data science experts will also support the Princess Máxima Center users so they can achieve maximum results within the platform to further optimize research capabilities.

ONTOFORCE’s flagship product, DISQOVER is a knowledge platform optimized for search and exploration that draws on semantic technology and an ontology-based knowledge graph to find links between data across databases faster and more efficiently. The platform has been developed for the life sciences sector and pre-ingests 140 of the top healthcare and life sciences public data sources. Linking these data sources can not only help healthcare organizations bridge the gap between research and the clinic, it also allows users to uncover new data connections and draw insights to improve future research and care.

“Working with the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology is an honor for the entire ONTOFORCE team,” says Valerie Morel, ONTOFORCE Chief Executive Officer. “Supporting the organization in achieving success in their research and care operations is a task that we take to heart, as such success means improved outcomes for their patients. We’re thrilled to be starting the year by commencing this partnership and are looking forward to the collaboration that’s to come.”

Michiel Kooper, Managing Director IDT (Information Technology, Data Provision, and [Biomedical] Technology) at the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology, says “With ONTOFORCE’s next level search technology, we will be able to safely open up more clinical data for researchers than ever before, helping us to improve our care for children with cancer and to accelerate our pediatric oncology research. We’ve already received great support from ONTOFORCE’s data science experts in implementing DISQOVER so it is tailored to the needs of our organization. We look forward to seeing the results of our partnership in practice.”