MMS Holdings Inc. in Canton Township, a data-focused contract research organization, today announced it has been selected by Health Data Research in the United Kingdom — the national institute for health data science — as a partner to support the International COVID-19 Data Alliance (ICODA) initiative.
MMS was selected from a pool of some of the world’s top clinical research organizations to provide data engineering services to support a globally coordinated, health data-led research response to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Health Data Research UK.
ICODA is an open and inclusive global collaboration of leading life science, philanthropic, and research organizations that have come together to harness the power of health data to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Uniting data from a broad set of contributors will enable discoveries that will help treat and prevent COVID-19 and coordinate effective data responses to health challenges of the future.
“The ICODA, convened by Health Data Research UK, is delighted to partner with MMS for data engineering services in support of our existing driver projects and upcoming Grand Challenges pilots,” says Neil Postlethwaite, technical director at ICODA. “We look forward to the MMS team supporting our data contributors with their expertise to accelerate contribution of data to the ICODA initiative. Their domain specific knowledge and experience will ensure our researchers have access to higher quality data sets and are able to focus on answering key research questions in the COVID-19 pandemic.”
During the pilot phase of the project, MMS will provide flexible service levels based on the capability of each contributor to transform their data to ICODA standards. The MMS biometrics and data science team will provide simple guidance to the full range of data services and data mapping as needed.
“The values that MMS were built on closely match those of HDR UK and ICODA, and we are proud to help them in making data accessible to health researchers and scientists around the world,” says Alan Nicolle, senior director, EU and SA Operations, with MMS. “At MMS, we take a people-first approach to every project, program, and pipeline. It’s this focus that allows us to consistently reach or surpass these critical research goals.”
After the pilot completes, MMS data scientists will use learnings to develop tools to further enable contributors such as open-source code and training that academic researchers can use to transform their own data. Additionally, later phases of the engagement may include data mapping and incorporation of real-world health data.
Learn more about ICODA here.
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