Milton Keynes University Hospital signs agreement with Oxford's Sensyne Health to drive clinical AI research
Sensyne Health plc, the Oxford-headquartered clinical artificial intelligence (AI) company, has signed a five year non-exclusive Strategic Research Agreement (SRA) with Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (MKUH). The agreement will enable the ethical application of clinical AI research to improve patient care and accelerate research into new medicines.Â
Milton Keynes NHS Foundation Trust has around 550 beds, including day acute and neonatal beds and employs around 3,500 staff, providing a full range of acute hospital services and an increasing number of specialist services.
Sensyne uses artificial intelligence algorithms developed by researchers at the University of Oxford and Oxford University NHS Foundation Trust to analyse and interpret anonymised patient data in collaboration with its NHS Trust partners. The financial returns generated by Sensyne are shared with its NHS Trust partners via equity ownership in the company and a share of royalties.
The MKUH dataset covers 650,000 unique patient records, with 55,000 annual hospital admissions from a patient population of approximately 350,000 people. The new agreement with MKUH brings the combined total of anonymised data available for analysis by Sensyne to 4.5 million patients.
All data supplied to Sensyne will be anonymised by MKUH beforehand and the provision of the data will operate under an agreed Data Processing Protocol under MKUH ethical oversight. MKUH patient data sits securely in a datawarehouse which will facilitate efficient data processing with Sensyne and enable immediate implementation.
MKUH will receive shares in Sensyne Health plc representing 1.1 per cent of the existing issued share capital of Sensyne. This brings the total share ownership held by NHS Trusts in Sensyne to 10.86 per cent. Sensyne will also invest up to £250,000 a year in the hospital's IT to enable the curation and analysis of data under the strategic agreement. MKUH will also receive a royalty on revenues that are generated by Sensyne from the research undertaken under the SRA. The financial return MKUH receives from Sensyne will be reinvested back into the NHS to fund patient care. MKUH has entered into a lock-up agreement whereby it has agreed not to dispose of any shares for a period of two years from the date the shares are issued
MKUH joins existing SRAs the Company has in place with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Chelsea & Westminster Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust, Wye Valley and George Eliot NHS Trusts.
Lord (Paul) Drayson PhD, CEO of Sensyne Health, said: "We are delighted to be working with Milton Keynes in using anonymised patient data to improve patient care and accelerate the development of new medicines. SRAs are a fundamental part of Sensyne's unique model - giving NHS Trusts equity, funding and the ability to share in revenues. Growing our access to anonymised patient data is key to our strategy. This new non-exclusive SRA moves us closer to our target of over 5 million unique patient records in the current financial year."
