See on Scoop.it – 4- PATIENT EMPOWERMENT & E-PATIENT by PHARMAGEEK

Last month, Genentech entered a five-year partnership with PatientsLikeMe to mine the online patient network’s database of real-world experiences from more than 250,000 members with 2,000 different conditions. At the helm of PatientsLikeMe is Jamie Heywood, a mechanical engineer by training who devised the idea for the platform ten years ago when he noticed some striking similarities between the information asked of online dating websites and clinical trial portals. Nicholette Zeliadt spoke to Heywood about what this new partnership will mean for open-participation research.

See on www.nature.com