Hospitals are normally places for treating illnesses. For the past nine years, however,
Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH) in Columbus has also been actively researching and developing high-tech advances in the areas of digital pathology, biospecimen analysis and biorepository management. These complex, behind-the-scenes functions are important for effectively diagnosing and treating diseases. Funding was provided, in part, by the
National Institutes of Health.
The result of NCH’s work is three new web-based biomedical tools that can have a significant impact on future diagnostic and research capabilities in hospitals, academic research centers and the pharmaceutical industry.
To market its innovations, NCH is partnering with
Transformatix Technologies, Inc., of California to create BioLinQ, a new biomedical informatics company designed to supply advanced software solutions for disease diagnosis and medical research.
According to Dave Billiter, director, Informatics, The Research Institute at NCH, “These new tools provide best practices in biospecimen management through implementation, promoting collaboration in a team science platform via the web/cloud and providing advanced methods to validate the quality of data for research.”
Ken Murray, CEO of Transformatix, will serve as Chairman and CEO of BioLinQ. He states that, with the growth of molecular technology and the advent of personalized medicine, the three new software tools are very timely.
"BioLinQ's primary purpose will be to provide this new software suite, via the cloud, to commercial customers, including other hospitals, academic research centers, government agencies, contract research organizations and the pharmaceutical industry," he explains. Offering the software through the cloud will enhance accessibility, Murray notes. "In addition, we will use NCH’s laboratory facilities, as well as their expertise, to prepare and analyze tissue specimens customers send us."
BioLinQ will be located at the
Dublin Entrepreneurial Center. The goal is to have the new company fully operational during the first quarter of 2013. Plans call for starting with eight key personnel and expanding to 20 employees and about 100 consultants.
Sources: Dave Billiter, Ken Murray
Writer: Lynne Meyer