Oncoshot Enters Into MOU With Singapore Clinical Research Institute

Left to right. Top row: CRIS Chairman Prof John Lim; Minister for Health Mr Ong Ye Kung; Oncoshot CTO and Co-Founder Mr Ruslan Enikeev. Bottom row: CRIS CEO Dr Danny Soon; Oncoshot CEO and Co-Founder Dr Huren Sivaraj. Photo was taken from CRIS Symposium 2022.

Oncoshot has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Singapore Clinical Research Institute (SCRI), the national coordinating body for clinical trials under the newly launched Consortium for Clinical Research and Innovation Singapore (CRIS). The signing event held last Wednesday was witnessed by guest-of-honour Minister for Health Mr Ong Ye Kung. 

This collaboration comes under Project EISE (Enhanced Clinical Trial Initiation, Screening and Enrolment; pronounced 'easy’) to address two key challenges. Firstly, public healthcare institution (PHI) clinical trial investigators wishing to conduct trials on promising cancer treatments are often limited to the patient pool of their affiliated cancer institutes which may be insufficient to initiate a clinical trial. These investigators may not know which other cancer centres to approach for more patients.   

Through SCRI, PHI investigators can now request access to anonymised, aggregated information regarding the oncology patient populations in Oncoshot’s network of public and private healthcare institutes. This includes the National Cancer Centre Singapore, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Curie Oncology, Icon Cancer Centre, and other leading Australian and Indian research collaborators. Improving access to larger patient populations will enhance and accelerate recruitment for oncology trials led by investigators in Singapore while making it easier for patients in the region to participate in research efforts developed in Singapore.  

Secondly, the process of conducting feasibilities and subsequently screening and enrolling patients for cancer clinical trials is presently lengthy, cumbersome, and manual. This collaboration provides clinical trial investigators with a platform to identify patients in a semi-automated manner when leveraging Oncoshot’s trial matching artificial intelligence (AI) platform. The platform provides investigators with a new capability to perform detailed reviews of individual de-identified patient records to determine if they match with highly specific trial criteria. The local institutes’ patient databases can also be further enriched with biomarker data to allow trial investigators to improve their chances of identifying suitable patients for these studies.   

Through this partnership, SCRI now offers PHI investigators access to aggregated hospital-approved insights based on anonymised, well-annotated, and up-to-date patient data from across Oncoshot’s network of cancer institutes. SCRI will be able to perform feasibility assessments for investigators to determine sufficiently sized eligible patient pools to initiate new trials. 

About Oncoshot 

Oncoshot was founded in 2018 by Dr Huren Sivaraj, a medical oncologist, and Ruslan Enikeev, a data science engineer and creator of Map of the Internet - a popular web traffic data visualization tool. Oncoshot's mission is to help oncologists identify cancer clinical trials more efficiently and effectively for patients and their caregivers by supporting hospitals and research partners. Its current focus is to leverage technology to address the inefficiencies of cancer clinical trials. Oncoshot has expanded to Australia and India since its inception in Singapore, an act that highlights its applicability and success. 

About CRIS and SCRI  

CRIS was established in 2020 to strengthen synergies and develop strategies for national-level clinical research and translational programmes under the stewardship of the Ministry of Health (MOH). Its vision is to nurture and build cutting edge capabilities and innovation in clinical research and translation.   

SCRI is the national coordinating body for clinical trials with a vision to establish Singapore as a regional thought leader in clinical research. This is accomplished through the deployment of innovative technologies and processes, and strategic coordination of ecosystem capabilities and infrastructure to achieve synergies that will enhance the clinical research ecosystem aimed toward a healthier community and better patient outcomes.