NEW YORK – October 4, 2018 – BlackBerry Limited (NYSE: BB; TSX: BB) today quickly followed the announcement of its flagship BlackBerry® Spark™ platform by announcing new partnerships and customer-driven projects that have a shared aim of transforming the global delivery of patient care enabled by the Enterprise of Things (EoT).

“We are applying our expertise in security, data privacy, and communication work in regulated industries such as automotive, financial services, and government to tackle one of the biggest challenges in the healthcare industry: leveraging healthcare endpoints to improve patient outcomes while ensuring security and data privacy,” said John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO of BlackBerry.

Ultra-Secure Storage and Transfer of Medical Data with BlackBerry’s NOC and Blockchain Technology

The company will be using its renowned carrier-grade network operation center (NOC) to power a blockchain digital ledger, provided by ONEBIO, to create an ultra-secure global ecosystem for the storing and sharing of medical data. For example, data could be inputted by patients, laboratories, and IoT biometric devices, and then anonymized so this data can be shared with researchers.

BlackBerry is offering this new secure blockchain solution for the first time to the Global Commission, an organization focused on ending the diagnostic odyssey for children with a rare disease. Co-chaired by Shire, the leading global biotech focused on rare diseases, one of the Global Commission’s technology pilots will explore how Blackberry’s new solution might provide real-time, actionable analysis as the Commission seeks to use technology to shorten the time to diagnosis.   

BlackBerry Launches New Operating System for Secure Medical Devices

Designed to be highly secure and compliant with IEC 62304 safety-certification standards, BlackBerry’s new QNX OS for Medical 2.0 is a real-time operating system for the development of robotic surgical instruments, patient monitoring systems, infusion pumps, blood analysis systems, and other safety-critical products that must pass stringent regulatory approval.

With QNX OS for Medical 2.0, medical device manufacturers have the assurance of using trusted software field-proven in thousands of life-critical environments, including in FDA Class III medical devices.

BlackBerry Partners with Mackenzie Innovation Institute

The Mackenzie Innovation Institute (Mi2) is exploring security and connectivity between the BlackBerry Spark platform and its ‘smart’ healthcare technology vision. Mi2 helps drive innovation in healthcare through research, education and training while enhancing healthcare practices, treatments, service delivery models and more.

“By developing a deeper understanding and exploring how our ‘smart’ systems operate with BlackBerry Spark, we aim to uncover new ways to connect, protect and intuitively manage smart technologies in a hospital and positively impact high-quality patient care,” says Richard Tam, Chief Financial Officer of Mi2. “Together, we will focus on comprehensive security, patient privacy and intelligent connectivity, all the while achieving the vision of the Internet of Healthcare Things (IoHT™).”

Mi² is a bridge between industry and healthcare for the implementation and evaluation of innovative and disruptive technologies, process redesign, and practice changes in real-time healthcare environments in order to create sustainable value-added improvements in patient experience, quality and outcomes.

BlackBerry Helps Advance Skin Cancer Research with Melanoma Institute Australia

After a successful trial, the Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA), which pioneers the prevention and cure of melanoma through world-class research, treatment and education programs, has selected BlackBerry to enable researchers to securely share critical research data and patient records in a heavily regulated environment. 

Approved contributors in the network, such as scientists and doctors at different hospitals, can use BlackBerry Workspaces to save and share data from medical histories and clinical trials to assess the effectiveness of treatments and interventions. The easy-to-use, encrypted collaboration solution will enable researchers to share timely clinical data, reduce the risk of data leakage, and accelerate research efforts.

Ernie White, Chief Information Officer of Melanoma Institute of Australia said, “Our priority is to advance the treatment of melanoma, so any new technology must support the clinical journey for our clinicians, not interrupt it. As we continue to expand our research network, Melanoma Institute Australia is accelerating how our researchers can freely collaborate in a very regulated environment, while maintaining data integrity. BlackBerry Workspaces strikes that balance between security and ease-of-use, while helping to meet data compliance and our own digital transformation goals.”