Information Technology for Translational Medicine, or ITTM, was founded in 2015 to meet the data management needs of pharma companies and European Commission-funded projects. Co-founder and managing director, Dr Andreas Kremer, talks about recent wins and aims for 2024.
You recently had an inauguration of the OHDSI Luxembourg node with the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH). Could you tell us more about this initiative?
ITTM focuses on data management of clinical, preclinical and real-world data, and in this context, data standardisation, harmonisation and interoperability are at the very centre.
A couple of years ago, an initiative in Europe started, but it’s actually a worldwide initiative. One of the projects we got associated with asked SMEs to be certified for the so-called OMOP Common Data Model, in order to facilitate the sharing of data in a federated manner. The data stays where it is, but still, you’re sending the research there and you can do analysis together, even if don’t have hands-on access to the data. It’s also very in line with GDPR constraints, which we have for good reasons, but it is enabling because of the shared common data model.
We felt this was very close to our heart, so from the beginning we got involved and were one of the first SMEs in Europe to be certified by the project, and since then [2019], we have gained more experience…
The idea was to build not only a European node but also country nodes. Luxembourg is not the biggest country in Europe, but we thought it would be very important to have a node for facilitating a pre-competitive, non-commercial exchange platform for people who are interested in sharing data in a secure manner, in a very good way, also with partners outside of Luxembourg. Obviously, ITTM has a business component; we are a commercial organisation. But we also would like to bring things back to the community to Luxembourg and also to the larger community, as it’s a research environment and an ecosystem.
“You can see an evolution, starting with pure data management, going into why you need the data, to clinical trials, and how to make sure that information from the patients is being used for their best.”
Dr Andreas Kremer, co-founder and managing director of ITTM
What were some of the other main successes for you in 2023?
One of the successes was to set up the node. What we are also very proud of, not only in 2023, is that we’re getting more and more recognised. As a still young organisation, not yet 10 years old, we’re getting recognition in the pharma world, and in health IT, and partners are calling us into projects.
We do have a very good grant business. In the last years, more than €6m in grant money was received for ITTM. We’re gaining new projects, and last year started having more B2B based on these grants.
Can you delve into some of your other partnerships?
What I can easily say is the partnerships from the project, as these are the starting points. We were very lucky that we got into projects like IMI OPTIMA or IDERHA, very renowned pharma companies, but also academic partners, building a consortium towards sharing data in a more clever way, using real-world data in a way that’s more for the patients. This led to consulting work for partner organisations, and also to the fact that these projects are sort of interwoven. For example, in the areas of lung and prostate cancer, we’re talking to big European associations as well… it’s about how we deal with and share data in Europe. There’s a lot of work to do for secure data sharing, and that’s where ITTM is contributing.
What are some of the aims heading into 2024?
The biggest is a grand project, and I’m limited to get into details, but we got to stage two, together with the academic side, to write a proposal. It was a call for clinical trials, how to improve them to make sure neglected patient cohorts aren’t being neglected anymore. I’m looking forward to this. You can see an evolution, starting with pure data management, going into why you need the data, to clinical trials, and how to make sure that information from the patients is being used for their best. Burdens and barriers are being minimised. Regulation doesn’t have to be minimised—we have it for a good reason—but that it’s being done in a useful, pragmatic way. Here, again, we’re happy as a young company in Luxembourg.
