NHS Data Miner Could Be Worth $291 Million After Share Sale

(Bloomberg) -- A company aiming to use patient data from the U.K.’s National Health Service’s to help pharma companies develop new drugs is getting ready to sell shares in London.

Paul Drayson, who has served as U.K. science minister, is preparing an initial public offering of Sensyne Health, which analyzes anonymous data from hospitals to help develop treatments, devices and clinical apps. The company has applied for listing on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market for smaller companies beginning Aug. 17, said Drayson, Sensyne’s chief executive officer.

Genetic testing companies including 23andMe Inc. are offering access to thousands of customers’ DNA records to help drugmakers understand factors that contribute to disease, and how to better treat them. Sensyne doesn’t share the NHS data, instead analyzing a variety of measures and indicators collected over patients’ lifetimes that have already shown the potential to help create useful tools to improve care, according to Drayson.

The company also offers NHS provider groups, called trusts, a way to tap into a system encompassing some 50 million patients to improve care and create revenue, he said, as the health service struggles with debt and funding.

“Our business model is to analyze anonymized data to make new discoveries which help the development of new medicines” and other products in exchange for fees and royalties, Drayson said in a telephone interview.

Early Warnings

Sensyne would have a total valuation of about 225 million pounds ($291 million) if it raises the planned 60 million pounds, Drayson said. Participating NHS trusts in Oxford, South Warwickshire and Chelsea and Westminster receive 5 million pounds in equity and a share of royalties, he said.

Sensyne has analyzed patient data to help develop early warning systems that help doctors recognize patients at risk of cardiac arrest and complications of diabetes associated with pregnancy, Drayson said. It’s expanding its agreement with Oxford’s NHS trust to include genomic data, a field in which the NHS has been increasing its use in patients with cancer, as well as children with unexplained disorders.

One of Sensyne’s goals is to ensure that patient data remain secure, confidential and anonymous, Drayson said. The company’s agreement with the trusts requires that the data only be used for research that leads to patient benefit, he said.

“We aren’t selling data,” he said. “We’re a data analysis company working with the NHS to answer questions relative to the discovery process.”

--With assistance from Naomi Kresge.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in London at jlauerman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, Marthe Fourcade

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