Extensive Web-based System for a Health Tech Startup

A feature-packed platform for sharing knowledge and scientific research assistance. Developed for a health tech startup, it enables communication between knowledge holders, experts, and researchers with innovative tools to advance their work.

Project Highlights

x4 lower error rate during NGS analysis

x10 better detection range

applicable to a €2.8B cancer genomic software market

Project Highlights

x4 lower error rate during NGS analysis

x10 better detection range

applicable to a €2.8B cancer genomic software market

Project Summary

About Client

Our client is a unique health tech startup from Sweden specializing in cancer genomics software. It was founded in 2018 and has managed to raise more than USD 1 million in investments over less than three years.

The company offers an innovative sequencing analysis solution to the scientific community working with unaddressed complex genetic changes. Our client’s goal is to let the state-of-the-art software facilitate revolutionary changes in the healthcare sector by boosting the quality and reliability of bioinformatics studies and experiments.

Client Request

Light IT Global’s team was chosen by an innovative health tech startup as a reliable technical partner that can implement a robust web-based system for our client. The system’s goal is to serve as a functional and easy-to-use interaction platform for people who require consultations or assistance with next-generation sequencing analysis and knowledge-holders who can perform such consultation/analysis.

The Outcome

Upon the project’s completion, a health tech startup received a modern web application that allows them to commercialize services related to bioinformatics and gene editing. The features implemented during the development process include (but are not limited to) the following:

Full compliance with relevant industry standards

Multiple user roles introduction ensures smooth interaction with the platform for the customers and uninterrupted workflow for the staff

The system supports multiple formats of files, including .fastq files used for storing both a biological sequence and its corresponding quality scores

Several payment methods were introduced to accommodate the customers

Create a responsive design for the platform and user-friendly UI/UX

Incorporate an extensive filtering system to simplify the search process for customers and admins

Booking and scheduling consultation with an expert chosen according to specific parameters

Choose and buy products and services related to genome editing research (DNA extraction, primer design, primer validation, etc.)

Project Summary

About Client

Client Request

The Outcome

Full compliance with relevant industry standards

Multiple user roles introduction ensures smooth interaction with the platform for the customers and uninterrupted workflow for the staff

The system supports multiple formats of files, including .fastq files used for storing both a biological sequence and its corresponding quality scores

Several payment methods were introduced to accommodate the customers

Create a responsive design for the platform and user-friendly UI/UX

Incorporate an extensive filtering system to simplify the search process for customers and admins

Booking and scheduling consultation with an expert chosen according to specific parameters

Choose and buy products and services related to genome editing research (DNA extraction, primer design, primer validation, etc.)

Location

Sweden

Industry

Healthcare

Partnership Period

6 months

Type

PAAS

Platform

Web

Team Size

11 experts

Services

IT Consulting, Custom Software Development

Expertise

Web Development, DevOps Services, Quality Assurance Services, Design

Tech Stack

Python, Django, Angular, PostgreSQL, Redis, Uwsgi, Kubernetes

Project Details

Business Challenge

While complex genetic changes drive 73% of all cancers, they remained unaddressed for a very long time. This had a negative impact on the development and quality of the cancer genomic software market and on the outcome of the studies as well.

Our client created a health tech startup to fill up the existing technological gap and provide scientists and researchers with highly precise and reliable next-generation sequencing analysis. And while a modern cancer genomic software market is worth EUR 2.8 billion, the European IT market didn’t really have much competition in this niche.

That’s why Light IT Global was trusted to create a digital platform that would safeguard optimal turnaround time and help the health tech startup organize the workflow in the most efficient and convenient way.

Implementation

Since the platform’s creation implies working with sensitive scientific data, the system’s integrity and fail-safeness were at the top of the priority list for this project. Every solution’s element was thoroughly tested, and the incorporation of DevOps practices helped to improve the delivery speed as well as overall software quality.

To develop a platform for this health tech startup, Light IT Global’s experts have used a combination of the most reliable and versatile technology like Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Redis, and Uwsgi for back-end and Angular for front-end. This helped to secure the solution’s scalability, optimal performance, and stability. And while the dev and QA teams took care of the technical aspect of the project’s implementation, the design team created a modern design concept that would represent the brand in a professional yet appealing manner.

One of the system’s main goals is to unite professionals and promote knowledge sharing that would further assist the progress of gene editing studies. Therefore, we had to create a user-role-based access system where the functionality available to a specific person would be determined by their role.

Types of users that were expected to join the platform are:

Customers (aka end users, researchers, molecular and cellular biologists)

Consultants (experts that provide consultations either for free or on a paid basis)

Content editors (people managing customers’ and consultants’ products and orders)

Investigators (experts working with the attachments to the customers’ orders)

Super-admin (a user who inherits roles of a content manager and investigator and is able to create new users)

Upon the completion of the registration and login process, each type of user is able to interact with the system via a dashboard. The core of the solution is ordering and consultation functionality. More specifically, the following:

The customers choose a consultant using a filtering system (hourly rate, specialization, number of publications, country, etc.,) schedule a meeting and pay for the provided consultation once it’s over.

The consultant has the ability to either confirm or decline the consultation request as well as to provide consultations for a predetermined rate or for free.

The payments can be made via a credit card or an invoice.

Apart from consultations, the customers can order certain products and services provided by our client’s company. The product range includes things like DNA extraction, primer design, primer validation, AMPLICON workflow, and more.

To receive an ordered product/service, the customer can send either .fastq files or real samples

Utilizing proprietary sequencing algorithms helps to ensure maximum throughput, scalability, and speed.

All of the events within the system that may require the user’s attention (e.g., new meeting scheduled, order status change, checkout process completion, etc.) are backed up by email notifications and further improve the quality of the interaction with the platform.

As a result, the solution combines execution excellence with ease-of-use and overall coherence, which positively impacts the customers’ experience and brand loyalty.

Bioinformatics and gene editing platform architecture

Solution Delivered

A comprehensive and fully compliant healthcare solution developed by Light IT Global helped our client’s health tech startup become more visible on the market and monetize their expertise in next-generation sequencing for gene editing. The platform allows the researchers to not only buy necessary products and services but also to receive consultations from experts that meet specific strict criteria and do it all on a budget.

The system helps our client analyze large volumes of data quickly yet thoroughly and keep the sample-to-analysis turnaround time minimized. Proprietary sequencing algorithms facilitate primary and secondary analysis, which is followed by results interpretation and validation.

Consequently, researchers, being the target audience of the platform, get access to services related to the Nobel-prize-awarded CRISPR-Cas9 method and have an opportunity to improve the accuracy of their experiments.

Business Outcome

By providing research groups with a reliable tool that allows them to get ultra-precise in-depth analysis results and information beyond the capacity of traditional DNA sequencing technology, our client helps to minimize the time between scientific discovery and its real-life application.

With software solutions like this, researchers around the world will have better access to the expertise and necessary instruments to advance their work and promote global scientific and technological progress.

And while this specific solution has a relatively limited target audience (experts working in biological sciences), it is still sought-after and easily monetized due to its innovative nature. Moreover, the range of products offered by our client’s company can be expanded in the future, which will boost the profitability.