MPC for healthcare and pharmaceutical industries

MPC for healthcare and pharmaceutical industries

In today’s context, the healthcare sector by itself contributes to around 30% of the global data volume, while the pharmaceutical industry significantly adds to this data generation. Handling and utilizing data from these sectors are also subject to some of the strictest regulations due to the nature of data that often includes personally identifiable information. GDPR, internal policies, and other regulatory frameworks pose tough challenges when data is collected or shared beyond isolated data silos for analytical purposes.

Public and private blockchains serve as effective tools for maintaining an immutable and transparent log of transactions, which can be relied upon and examined by various stakeholders such as public authorities. However, when it comes to the actual manipulation and processing data, both public permissionless blockchains and private blockchains are insufficient due to the lack of privacy features. This is where Partisia Blockchains’ distinctive and proprietary secure multiparty computation (MPC) technology emerges as exceptionally valuable

Our MPC technology empowers individuals and organizations to preserve privacy right from the input stage. This entails breaking down data into many encrypted secrets, which are then shared with specialized MPC network nodes. Critically, these nodes remain unaware of the specific content they store or compute on. Predetermined private and public smart contracts establish protocols for computations and determine access privileges to the outcomes, as authorized by permissions.

The potential applications for private computations within the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors are virtually limitless. In this article, we will explore some of the extensively discussed scenarios.

Confidential DNA sequencing

Privacy technologies play a pivotal role in enhancing the security and confidentiality of private DNA sequencing. With the advancements of genetic analysis techniques, individuals are increasingly seeking to unlock insights from their genomic data, but the sensitive nature of genetic information demands robust measures to preserve privacy. MPC offers solutions by enabling private computations on encrypted genetic data without the need to expose the raw data. This allows for collaborative research, personalized medical insights, and genetic advancements while ensuring that individuals retain control over their sensitive genetic details.

By employing these technologies, private DNA sequencing initiatives can preserve privacy, encourage data sharing for scientific progress, and mitigate the risks associated with unauthorized access or breaches of genetic information.

Clinical research

Traditional data sharing approaches often raise concerns about privacy breaches and data ownership when it comes to the almost abundant amount of sensitive patient information and proprietary research data for healthcare and pharmaceuticals. MPC addresses these challenges by allowing multiple parties to jointly analyze and derive insights from their respective datasets without actually revealing the raw data to each other, but only share valuable outputs.

In the context of clinical research, pharmaceutical companies and healthcare institutions can collaboratively conduct analyses on aggregated datasets while keeping individual patient information and proprietary data secret. This facilitates cross-institutional research without the need to centrally consolidate data, eliminating the risks of data exposure and unauthorized access. Different pharmaceutical companies, each possessing valuable proprietary data, can engage in joint studies without revealing their confidential insights.

This collaborative approach unlocks opportunities for discovering broader trends, identifying potential drug interactions, and conducting large-scale analyses that draw from diverse datasets. By preserving privacy and ownership, MPC encourages cooperation among entities that might have otherwise hesitated due to privacy concerns. In essence, MPC bridges the gap between robust data-driven insights and the need for privacy, fostering a new era of collaborative clinical research across previously isolated data silos and organizations.

Supply chain management

MPC offers robust primitives to revolutionize supply chain management within the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. In these sectors, ensuring the integrity, transparency, and security of the supply chain is of all importance, as any inefficiencies or vulnerabilities can have serious consequences for patient safety and product quality.

MPC provides a solution by enabling various stakeholders, including manufacturers, distributors, regulatory bodies, and even healthcare providers, to collaboratively manage the supply chain without revealing sensitive proprietary information to one another. This is particularly valuable when dealing with complex global supply networks involving multiple parties, each with their own data and interests. Parties can jointly verify and validate critical supply chain information, such as the authenticity of raw materials, production processes, transportation routes, and inventory levels.

For example, pharmaceutical companies can verify the authenticity and quality of raw materials supplied by third-party vendors without sharing their precise formulation details. Regulatory agencies can conduct audits and ensure compliance across the supply chain while preserving the confidentiality of manufacturing processes. Healthcare providers can track the provenance of medical devices or drugs to enhance patient safety and prevent counterfeiting.

MPC-driven supply chain management ensures trust among stakeholders by providing a secure environment for collaboration. It prevents fraud, minimizes the risk of data breaches, and streamlines information sharing. By harnessing the power of MPC, the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries can establish a more efficient, transparent, and secure supply chain ecosystem that ultimately benefits patients, regulatory compliance, and business operations alike.

Recruitment for clinical trials

MPC presents a transformative way for streamlining the recruitment process in clinical trials while upholding patient privacy and data security. Clinical trial recruitment often entails the sharing of sensitive patient information across multiple stakeholders, including healthcare providers, research institutions, and pharmaceutical companies. MPC offers an innovative approach by allowing these entities to collaboratively identify eligible participants without revealing individual patient details.

Using MPC, each participant contributes encrypted data, maintaining the confidentiality of their personal information. The parties can collectively perform computations on this encrypted data to match potential participants with specific trial criteria, such as medical history, demographic characteristics, or genetic markers. This process ensures that no party gains access to the raw data of others, mitigating privacy concerns.

MPC technology not only accelerates the participant matching process but also encourages broader collaboration among stakeholders who might otherwise hesitate to share sensitive patient data. This approach streamlines the recruitment process, reduces administrative burden, and respects patients’ privacy rights. Ultimately, MPC revolutionizes clinical trial recruitment by combining efficiency and data security, fostering trust among stakeholders and contributing to the advancement of medical research.

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