Macrogen, the leading biotech company in South Korea, intends to start using blockchain for sharing medical information. In a recent announcement, the company said the technology will be used to store and share genomic data. The announcement comes just two months after the biotech firm formed a partnership with Bigster, a big data company based in South Korea.
Leading the path in genomic analysis
Macrogen is on record for being the first local biotech company to fully sequence a Korean genome. According to the company, there are many benefits that come with genomic analysis. Among other things, genomic analysis helps easily diagnose diseases and enables doctors to prescribe personalized treatment to address unique and isolated situations.
In the recent past, there has been a steady increase in people seeking to have personal DNA tests. Estimates put the figure at around 17 million the number of people that will buy personal tests this year alone. This will be over four times the number of people who took personal DNA tests in 2016. Pharmaceutical companies are keen to tap into this growing popularity by building data banks that are used in research into drugs and therapies.
Bigster to provide technical support
Macrogen will partner with Bigster in developing the platform, which is expected to be launched in June next year. This is not the first time a biotech company is developing blockchain technology. LunaDNA, Nebula Genomics and a host of other local companies are already leveraging blockchain technology for storage of DNA.
Genomic data refers to all information regarding a person’s biological pattern like the genome or the DNA. Security and privacy are the two leading factors taken into consideration when building data storage services. These two factors can sufficiently be addressed using blockchain technology.
The company is working to implement advanced cryptographic and non-cryptographic measures so as to protect data from security risks, hacks and privacy infringement. All around the world, blockchain technology has been lauded as the safest and most hack-resistant technology. The technology allows companies to securely handle large amount of data.