Swiss Personalised Health Network

What Swiss Personalised Health Network does

Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN) is a Swiss Confederation-mandated national infrastructure initiative, established in 2016 and operated under the responsibility of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS) in collaboration with SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. Headquartered in Bern with an operational Data Coordination Center in Basel, SPHN provides the technical and coordination backbone for responsible secondary use of health-related data in personalized medicine research across Switzerland.

The platform centers on the SPHN Semantic Interoperability Framework, an RDF-based data model with 120+ FHIR profiles that enables FAIRification of clinical data across heterogeneous hospital systems. Core technical components include the SPHN Data Explorer (cross-hospital query platform with homomorphic encryption), the SPHN Metadata Catalog, the SPHN Connector for transforming relational hospital data into compliant graph representations, the Schema Forge for RDF schema generation, the DCC Terminology Service (SNOMED CT, LOINC), BioMedIT (national Trusted Research Environment), SwissFEGA (Swiss node of the European Genome-Phenome Archive), and SPHN-on-FHIR for emerging health data space interoperability. The network spans all five Swiss university hospitals, six cantonal hospitals, and the Swiss Cancer Institute, with metadata covering approximately 800,000 patients.

SPHN operates as a government-funded non-profit with no commercial pricing; services are provided at no cost to Swiss researchers and healthcare institutions. Revenue flows from federal research mandates, with the most recent 2025-2028 mandate period introducing a new governance structure and funding scheme. Project funding is distributed through Demonstrator projects (CHF 4.3M across 11 projects in 2023), National Data Streams (CHF 5M for the IICU project in 2022), and Driver project mechanisms, primarily disbursed to research consortia rather than retained as internal SPHN revenue. Customer engagement is structured around formal collaboration agreements with university hospitals and onboarding programs for cantonal hospitals.

Name

Swiss Personalised Health Network

Legal name

Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN)

Website

https://sphn.ch

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

SPHN is a Swiss Confederation-mandated national infrastructure initiative that provides semantic interoperability standards, FAIR-compliant data tools, and a trusted research environment enabling personalized health research across Swiss university and cantonal hospitals.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Health Research Data Infrastructure

NAICS

Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services (5416), Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (519)

SIC

Services-Membership Organizations (8600)

akta.pro primary industry

Data Governance, Standards & Interoperability (ICD, HL7/FHIR, LOINC, SNOMED) (HLAJAJAM)

akta.pro secondary industries

Health Data, Vital Statistics & Population Health Informatics (BPAIAJAM), Public Health Governance, Interagency Coordination & Partnerships (HLAJAMAD)

Keywords

• Health data infrastructure
• Clinical data interoperability
• Personalised medicine research
• FAIR data standards
• Trusted research environment

Headquarters

HQ city

Büren An Der Aare

HQ country

Switzerland

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure, Others

Revenue model

1. Government Funding: SPHN is mandated by the Swiss Confederation and operates under the responsibility of Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS) in collaboration with SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. Funded through federal research mandates, not commercial revenue generation.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Swiss Personalised Health Network (SPHN) operates as the Swiss Confederation-mandated national infrastructure for personalized health research, providing a semantic interoperability framework, data tools, and secure research environments that enable hospitals to make clinical data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and available for multi-site research. Its core outputs are the SPHN Data Explorer, SPHN Metadata Catalog, SPHN Connector, SPHN Schema Forge, SwissFEGA genomic archive, and the BioMedIT Trusted Research Environment network.

Product overview

SPHN provides a unified national infrastructure for research with health data in Switzerland. The platform operates as an integrated ecosystem of tools and services built around the SPHN Semantic Interoperability Framework, which defines the core data standards. Key platform components include the SPHN Data Explorer (DEAS) for cross-hospital querying, the SPHN Metadata Catalog with Schema Scope for project discovery, the SPHN Connector for data transformation, the DCC Terminology Service for standardized vocabularies (SNOMED CT, LOINC), and SPHN Schema Forge for schema generation. Supporting infrastructure includes SwissFEGA for genomic data sharing, BioMedIT as the trusted research environment, and SPHN-on-FHIR for healthcare interoperability standards. The platform supports National Data Streams as specialized data pipelines for high-end personalized health research.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• BioMedIT: National Trusted Research Environment network providing secure computing environments for sensitive health data research in Switzerland.
• SwissFEGA
• SPHN Data Explorer
• SPHN Metadata Catalog
• SPHN Connector
• Schema Forge

Products and services

• SPHN Data Explorer (DEAS) Cross-hospital data query and feasibility study platform enabling researchers to securely access aggregated hospital data, conduct feasibility queries, and perform simple data explorations such as value distributions or survival curves. Implemented with technology partner Tune Insight using cutting-edge privacy measures including homomorphic encryption and data obfuscation.
• SPHN Metadata Catalog User-friendly metadata catalog built on FAIR Data Point specification and HealthDACT application profile for exploring project metadata and interactively visualizing schemas. Includes Schema Scope for interactive schema visualization and integrates with the I14Y national metadata catalog.
• SPHN Connector Open-source tool developed by USZ to facilitate the creation of valid SPHN-compliant graph data based on relational, semantically described data in hospital data platforms. Interfaces with the DCC Terminology Service and SPHN Schema Forge.
• DCC Terminology Service Provides external terminologies such as SNOMED CT, LOINC, and others in compatible RDF format for semantic standardization of health data across SPHN infrastructure.
• SPHN Schema Forge Web service that generates project schemas, validation rules, and statistical queries from simple project-specific input. Converts Excel-based SPHN datasets into complete RDF-based semantic web representations.
• SwissFEGA (Swiss Federated Genome-Phenome Archive) Swiss node of the Federated European Genome-Phenome Archive for depositing and sharing human genomic data. Operated by a consortium of SIB, ETH Zurich, SDSC, Switch, and Health 2030 Genome Center, ensuring compliance with Swiss legal and ethical requirements while being interoperable with European research infrastructures.
• SPHN-on-FHIR Project translating the RDF-based SPHN data model into Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), with over 120 FHIR profiles developed in collaboration with the Berlin Institute of Health to support exchange of electronic health data and interaction with the future Swiss Health Data Space.
• BioMedIT National Trusted Research Environment network providing secure computing environments for sensitive health data analysis. Supports researchers with privacy-conscious, data-driven science infrastructure and partners with EOSC-ENTRUST to help shape a trusted European framework for secure use of sensitive health data.
• CPCR Service Finder Collaborative tool developed by the Coordination Platform Clinical Research (CPCR) that enables researchers to find national infrastructures providing expertise, data, or resources in one interface.
• SPHN Mocker Python library designed to facilitate the generation of synthetic SPHN-compliant data for testing, validation, and development purposes.
• SPHN Semantic Interoperability Framework Comprehensive data model and schema package (including SPHN Dataset and SPHN RDF schema) that enables semantic interoperability of health-related data following FAIR principles. Anchors the entire SPHN platform.
• National Data Streams (NDS) Switzerland-wide multidisciplinary consortia investing in sustainable data infrastructure for data-driven and personalized health research. Central pillars of the SPHN health data ecosystem, including clinical, multi-omics, and other enriched data available to researchers.
• Medical Imaging Data Schema Schema release introducing a standardized framework for FAIR medical imaging data, representing a long-awaited addition to the SPHN data model for diagnostic imaging concepts.

Quantifiable outcome

• Clinical data from 800,000 patients unlocked for health research
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

16 partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.

• EOSC-ENTRUSTcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 2 July 2026BioMedIT (SPHN's national Trusted Research Environment network) partners with EOSC-ENTRUST (Horizon Europe project) to help shape a trusted, interoperable European framework for secure use of sensitive health data.
• Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 23 April 2026Collaboration to improve discoverability and interoperability of health datasets in Switzerland. Records from SPHN Metadata Catalog are now fully integrated to I14Y, Switzerland's national metadata catalog.
• Swiss Digital Pathology Initiative (SDPI)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 3 December 2024Strategic collaboration to integrate digital pathology data in SPHN network. Joint effort aims to advance precision medicine through combined data infrastructure.
• Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSPHN is mandated by the Swiss Confederation and is under the responsibility of SAMS. SAMS provides governance oversight and institutional responsibility for the national health data infrastructure initiative.
• SIB Swiss Institute of BioinformaticscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSIB operates the Data Coordination Center (DCC) in collaboration with SAMS. The Personalized Health Informatics Group (PHI) based in Basel delivers technical implementation including BioMedIT project, SPHN tools, and semantic interoperability framework.
• Swiss University Hospitals (5)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration agreements with five Swiss university hospitals provide standardized framework and technical infrastructure to make hospital data FAIR and available for research purposes.
• Cantonal Hospitals (LUKS, KSA, EOC, KSB, H-OCH St.Gallen)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCantonal hospital onboarding program standardizes data delivery across Swiss healthcare institutions, enabling participation in multi-site personalized medicine research. Transforming minimal datasets into interoperable knowledge graph using SPHN Semantic Interoperability Framework.
• Swiss Cancer Institute (SCI)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOnboarded to SPHN network alongside cantonal hospitals to contribute clinical data to multi-site research.
• Personalized Health and Related Technologies (PHRT)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPHRT from ETH Domain is a key partner initiative. Joint activities include National Data Streams funding, co-organized conferences (From Technology to Treatment), and coordinated calls for proposals.
• Swiss Data Science Centre (SDSC)majorTechnology or IntegrationCollaboration on RENKU platform development. BioMedIT Interoperability working group provides input, use cases, and requirements for biomedical components including HPC computing, federation capabilities.
• Berlin Institute of HealthmajorTechnology or IntegrationCollaboration on SPHN-on-FHIR project developing 120+ FHIR profiles. German partnership supports alignment with future Swiss Health Data Space (SwissHDS).
• Health-RI (Netherlands)majorTechnology or IntegrationInternational collaboration with Dutch national health research data initiative. Participation in joining-the-dots workshops to connect European health data infrastructures.
• Tune InsightmajorTechnology or IntegrationTechnology partner for SPHN Data Explorer - advanced platform for cross-hospital data queries and feasibility studies implementing cutting-edge privacy measures.
• AccentureminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerFAIR Data Team includes consultant from Accenture providing expertise for SPHN FAIRification activities.
• Maelstrom ResearchmajorTechnology or IntegrationSPHN Cohort Consortium contributed metadata from Swiss cohort studies to international Maelstrom Catalog, increasing discoverability and usability in national and international research projects.
• Health 2030 Genome CentermajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner in SwissFEGA consortium (Swiss Federated Genome-Phenome Archive) for depositing and sharing human genomic data in compliance with Swiss legal requirements.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• ELIXIR: European intergovernmental organization for bioinformatics infrastructure, coordinating national nodes across Europe. Broader in scope (life sciences not just health) but overlapping in FAIR data, semantic interoperability, and trusted research environment domains.

Direct peers

• Health-RI: National Dutch health research data infrastructure initiative. Operates a comparable model of integrating Dutch university medical centers under a government-mandated framework with FAIR data principles, semantic interoperability, and trusted research environments. SPHN and Health-RI have an active 'joining-the-dots' collaboration.
• France Health Data Hub: French national platform for health data reuse, hosted by a government-mandated entity with secure analysis environments. Comparable in offering secure cross-hospital data access for research, governance role, and national mandate scope; one of Europe's leading national health data initiatives.
• Genomics England: UK government-mandated organization sequencing genomes from NHS patients for research and personalized medicine. Closely comparable in national precision medicine mandate, government-backed model, and focus on FAIR genomic-clinical data integration.
• UK Biobank: Large-scale biomedical database with deep phenotypic and genomic data from 500,000+ UK participants, providing approved researchers access for health research. Comparable in scale, open-access research model, and focus on linking standardized health data for multi-disease research.
• All of Us Research Program: NIH-led US national precision medicine initiative building a database from 1M+ participants, with secure researcher access. Comparable in government mandate, scale ambition, and personalized health research orientation; benchmark for national cohort and EHR integration.
• Medical Informatics Initiative (MII): German federal initiative funded by BMBF connecting university hospitals via Data Integration Centres for interoperable health data reuse. Directly comparable in scope, governance, and FAIRification objectives; collaborates with SPHN via Berlin Institute of Health on FHIR profiles.
• Maelstrom Research: McGill-based international research initiative providing cataloguing and harmonization tools for cohort metadata. Directly comparable in cohort metadata discoverability objectives; active integration partner of SPHN via shared cohort metadata catalog.

Peers

• HDRN Canada (Health Data Research Network Canada):

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/SPHN_ch
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/swiss-personalized-health-network-sphn

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Swiss Personalised Health Network