Latvian startup Longenesis among the winners

The Fair Health Data Challenge has announced the top three companies that exemplify fair digital health and well-being services and organisations. Latvian startup Longenesis is one of the winning enterprises whose solution will be presented at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Europe 2021 conference.

The challenge was organised as part of Sitra’s fair data economy IHAN® project. Sitra, Finnish Innovation Fund, has a vision in which data is shared more freely between different parties. Trust in service providers encourages individuals to share their data when the sharing is based on their consent. People obtain access to more targeted services that improve their well-being and daily lives.

Companies of all sizes achieve growth through innovation and well-being increases. In the Fair Health Data Challenge, the international expert panel focused on the fairness of the solution or idea in terms of different parties and the individual’s ability to manage their own data. Candidates came from six European countries: Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands and Norway. 

The three equally deserving winners of the challenge are:

• Longenesis (Latvia) – tools for the efficient cross-border exchange of data between researchers, healthcare institutions and providers of research financing while respecting patient privacy.
• Antegenes (Estonia) – an advanced cancer risk test that uses, with the individual’s consent, genome data from a national biobank to assess their cancer risk.
• Sensotrend (Finland) – an application that helps diabetes patients to make changes in their daily life based on health data and that can also be used to share data between various parties involved in healthcare.

The solutions of the winners emphasised the consent-based sharing of data and the benefits this yields for individuals, research and the whole of society. Other common characteristics included paying constant attention to data security in the transfer of data and keeping the volume of data transferred as small as possible.

“Personal and other data has enormous potential both in healthcare and the prevention of diseases. However, data must be used under fair rules. The applications of the challenge winners are excellent examples of new fair services,” notes Ilkka Räsänen, Leading Specialist at Sitra.

Source: labsoflatvia.com