Singapore Translational Cancer Consortium (STCC), National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), the National University Cancer Institute, Singapore (NCIS) at the National University Hospital (NUH) and Roche announced a unique and groundbreaking partnership between public and private sector institutions in Singapore aimed at establishing a critical infrastructure to advance the adoption of personalised healthcare in Singapore. Personalised healthcare, which includes precision oncology or personalised cancer care, leverages insights from medical and genomic data to help make more precise treatment decisions for each individual based on their clinical profile.

Building a Foundation for Future Care

As part of the three-year partnership, the STCC, NCCS and NCIS will offer their medical expertise, research insight and data resources to build a clinico-genomic database (CGDB) in Singapore that combines clinical insights and real-world evidence – anonymised data from patients’ responses to medicine and care – with the goal of yielding better patient outcomes. Professor Chng Wee Joo, Executive Director of STCC and Director of NCIS, said “This MOU extends various initiatives to advance personalized healthcare effort in oncology and paves the way towards a data-driven and patient-centric model that would transform healthcare delivery while providing value-based solutions.”

NCCS and NCIS will tap their institutions’ networks of clinical and scientific experts and existing cross-institutional programmes like the SInGapore ImmuNogrAm for Immuno-OncoLogy (SIGNAL) and the Cancer Liquid Biopsies for Real-time diagnostics and early intervention (CaLiBRe) platforms, to expand genomic testing, identify optimal therapeutic strategies for patients and co-develop guidelines for precision oncology and patient access while providing resources to build the personalised healthcare ecosystem.

With genomic profiling of their tumour, a person may have more options to receive personalised care that treats the underlying molecular driver of their disease. Over the past five years, Foundation Medicine (FMI), a molecular information company that is part of the Roche Group, has been providing comprehensive genomic profiling in Singapore to support physicians and patients in these cancer care decisions.

To support the application of precision oncology, Roche will provide access to comprehensive genomic profiling by FMI. They will also advise on the design and implementation of the Singapore CGDB based on FMI and Flatiron Health’s CGDB with more than 400,000 patient profiles, which has been used to identify new targets for development of medicines and companion diagnostic tests. 

“Insights gained from the collection of high-quality, standardised genomic data in these databases can supplement or amplify clinical studies to help accelerate research and development, which we hope will ultimately optimise healthcare resources and increase chances of survival for even more people with cancer,” said Ryan Harper, General Manager of Roche Singapore.

Singapore Translational Cancer Consortium (STCC) is a business unit under the Consortium for Clinical Research and Innovation, Singapore (CRIS; www.cris.sg), a subsidiary of Ministry of Health Holdings (MOHH) Pte Ltd, and is anchored by the cancer research programmes and commercialisation platforms of STCC’s research partners (NCCS, NCIS, NUS Cancer Science Institute [CSI] and A*STAR).