With a formal Grant Offer, on 13^th of January 2022, Project „ Experimental development for creation of decision support application (Danny DSA) for breast and prostate cancer care“, promoted by Sqilline, was approved for funding by Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021, Programme Business Development, Innovation and SMEs, Bulgaria, Focus area: Welfare Technology.

This procedure is part of the initiatives of Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021. Information on the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 is available online at: https://www.innovasjonnorge.no/en/start-page/eea-norway-grants/Programmes/business-development/Bulgaria/

Project „ Experimental development for creation of decision support application (Danny DSA) for breast and prostate cancer care “ is related to:

• Create a decision support system for breast and prostate cancer care that will reflect and enhance clinical practice guidelines by contrasting them with large-scale semantic and causal analyses of real-world data using advanced AI tools
• Propose an open standard for guideline representation and a toolset to convert guidelines into an oncology-driven, computer-readable format
• Provide patient-centric support tools to be used by breast/prostate cancer patients
• Establish a large, real-world dataset in breast/prostate cancer care

Main objective: Creation of effective and efficient IT solution, which will provide health care specialists with accurate and consistent CPGs for breast and prostate cancer care.

Beneficiary: „Sqilline Business Solutions“ Ltd

Overall project amount: 774 900 euro (349 000 euro grant support and 425 900 euro own co-financing).

Project start date: 01.03.2022

Project end date: 31.08.2023

With the new tool Sqilline aims to optimize cancer care, decrease inappropriate practice variation, enhance the transition of research into practice, and explore safer and more effective therapeutic options. In line with this vision, we aim to address a range of unmet medical needs, critical to ensure the delivery of optimal and safer care for oncological patients, and thus:

1. Improve clinicians’ compliance with CPGs for therapeutic decisions that significantly impact mortality, morbidity, quality of life, health, and social resources bearing on cancer care-related costs.
2. Use evidence from real-world datasets (EHRs) to fill the existing discrepancies and gaps in the CPGs and to compensate for the weaknesses of CPGs’ content.
3. Address the patients’ timely information needs at the point of care, which is essential in the rapidly evolving, complex decision-making in cancer.
4. Provide insights into novel, effective, and safer potential drug treatments for cancer.

AI-based knowledge discovery platform to improve oncology treatments and provide the best possible patient care

Danny DSA will empower various stakeholders:

Patients – ensure patient centration and participation throughout at all times

Clinicians – Danny DSA will provide direct access to CPG (Clinical Practice Guidelines)-driven suggestions as well as suggestions derived from AI models driven by real-world data. This will allow for comparison among guidelines, enabling the identification of discrepancies and gaps.

Policy-makers – Danny DSA will assist healthcare providers that they are implementing the most appropriate clinical therapy. That way policy-makers will be able to evaluate if patients are receiving the best possible care.

Industry – Danny DSA, as a guideline-based decision support system, will include data regarding recommendations on drugs, doses, and criteria for drug treatment. The technology will provide a direct perspective into the reasoning behind clinical decision-making, and potentially bring insights in relation to off-label drug use along with drug repurposing.

Researchers – Danny DSA will provide researchers with access to information that is relevant for biomedical research. Based on our project’s data, researchers will be able to generate multiple hypotheses and find answers to research questions.

Danny DSA will allow medical society to compare how different clinical guidelines resolve the same clinical scenarios. This comparison will be an opportunity for guideline homogenization. Clinical practice guidelines will be available in an easy-to-maintain digital format.

The EEA and Norway Grants are funding from Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein to 15 beneficiary countries in Europe. The Grants aim to reduce economic and social differences in Europe and increase cooperation with Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. The Grants are provided to 15 countries in Europe and to cooperation with partners in Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. Innovation Norway is involved in Business Development, Innovation and SMEs, Energy, Environment and Social Dialogue – Decent Work across all 15 countries. The programs on Business Development, Innovation, and SMEs support businesses in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Slovakia. They also support partners in Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein.

Supported by the Norway Grants 2014-2021, in the frame of the Programme Business Development, Innovation, and SMEs, Bulgaria.

С финансовата подкрепа на Норвежкия финансов механизъм 2014-2021, в рамките на програма “Развитие на бизнеса, иновации и МСП в България”.