BlackBerry and NantHealth push cancer genome browser for easy access to genetic data

Last weekend, BlackBerry and the healthcare industry's data provider, NantHealth, launched a cancer genome browser that allows doctors to access patient genetic data on a BlackBerry Passport smartphone, Reuters reported.

Earlier this year, the company bought a minority stake in NantHealth, a private holding company. Mobile technology's BlackBerry sees the healthcare industry as one of the lucrative sectors of the economy, because the industry is highly concerned about patient privacy, and a huge BlackBerry network can manage large amounts of data on mobile devices and ensure data security. So BlackBerry believes that it has an advantage in the healthcare industry.

The company said the cancer genome browser on the BlackBerry Passport smartphone could provide a deep interactive report on genomics data to physicians. The browser provides cancer physicians with a tool to observe individual gene mutations in a particular disease, while allowing oncologists to pay attention to and highlight the treatment regimen.

This September, the BlackBerry Company unveiled a screen-square passport device that was designed to meet the needs of doctors. It has a wide screen that allows doctors to better observe X-rays, medical scans, and documents.

"Our partnership with the BlackBerry does enable us to create a lightweight supercomputer that doctors can operate between the two palms," said Patrick Soon-shiong, chief executive of NantHealth. John Chen, chief executive of the BlackBerry company, said he hoped the new browser would make health care professionals interested in passport equipment.

The genome browser is fully encrypted, allowing doctors to safely deploy and use them, so that doctors can secure access to the patient's medical data wherever they are.

Next January, the browser will be displayed on the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (Consumer Electronics, abbreviated as CES), and it will be pre-installed on BlackBerry's passport devices and made available to professionals earlier in 2015. Other specific devices running on a competitor's platform can also acquire the browser, provided they are under the umbrella of the BlackBerry Network.

The cloud platform provided by California State's NantHealth company has connected thousands of medical devices in hospitals. The company's founder is Huang (Patrick Soon-shiong, formerly Translator Chen Songxiong), a surgeon and businessman. Earlier, he sold two of his previously established companies, Anglo Pharmaceutical and Abraxis Bioscience, which earned billions of of dollars. Huang said BlackBerry and NantHealth will continue to collaborate on software and hardware development, and said two companies are already developing a new device that will transform the transmission of large datasets once the research is successful. Details of the study, the company will be disclosed early next year.