“We want to basically use the healthcare data to support the development of the health science research industry in Hong Kong, as well as supporting better healthcare to Hong Kong patients.”

Lee said applications for the information could include the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and statistics-based models to predict the risk of chronic diseases among patients or for carrying out imaging diagnostics for conditions such as hip fractures.

Grace Lau Sze-ngar, head of the translational research institute at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, said the use of real-world information was crucial in the development of innovations in the biotechnology sector, especially among companies that relied on big data and the creation of AI-based algorithms.

“No matter whether it’s diagnostic, using patient data in the database to validate your diagnostic tools or using images, all these will require real patient data,” she said.

The platform holds public hospital clinical records from about 200,000 patients randomly selected from between 2007 and 2017. The system is set up at the HKSTP HA Data Collaboration Lab in the Science Park.

The anonymous information is available free of charge to companies and includes demographic characteristics, hospital and clinic attendance records, diagnoses, procedures, medication records, as well as laboratory and radiology test results.

More than 1,400 companies and partners based at the Science Park can apply for five-day access to the platform.

People who ask to read the information will be vetted by the park’s staff and those who intend to use it will be reviewed by an ethics committee.

Applicants must also sign a contract designed to cover usage terms and confidentiality.

Lau said application reviews would look at research directions and last about a week.

Ten to 20 companies specialising in diagnostics tools, medical devices and therapeutics had already expressed an interest in the scheme, she added.

Lau said the data set was “unique” as few places around the world could provide a large volume of patient information from a single database.

“This structured database is very rare to be able to be accessed by biotech start-up companies,” she said.

“This is why we believe building this collaboration enabling the use of patient data will enable many start-ups in the biotech area or biomedical technology area to further flourish and help them to grow in terms of their innovation and development.”

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The facility for the platform has four rooms where companies can access the information and is equipped with security measures such as surveillance cameras, multiple password layers and a two-step authentication system.

Lee said downloading, copying or saving the data was not allowed under the platform’s remote settings and internet access was not enabled on-site.

“Only companies who are authorised and approved by Science Park under the contract arrangement will be allowed to go in there,” he said. “There’s also attendance to make sure there’s no misuse of data.”

“It is not internet-enabled. There’s no way for hackers to go into this lab to get the data … all these measures have been used for quite some time under the university arrangement.

It’s very protected, and we are confident that the data is well protected.”

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The self-service platform opened to universities in the 2020-21 financial year and contributed to the work of 400 researchers, as well as 62 projects and 18 academic papers.

It also formed part of a pilot scheme introduced in 2023 which involved Codex Genetics, a company that specialises in AI analytics using genetic and clinical information, and Belun, which works in the field of sleep monitoring.

Lau said on Thursday that the two companies had given good feedback on the scheme’s speed, authenticity, coverage, functionality and reliability.