How Patient Organizations Can Drive FAIR Data Efforts to Facilitate Research and Health Care: A Report of the Virtual Second International Meeting on Duchenne Data Sharing, March 3, 2021

BACKGROUND: For patients with rare diseases such as Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy (DMD/BMD), access to their health data is key to being able to advocate for themselves and be in control of their care. Since 2018, the DMD/BMD patient community has been committed to making DMD/BMD-related data FAIR, i.e., Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. On March 3, 2021, the second international meeting on FAIR data sharing for DMD/BMD was held virtually. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this meeting report is to summarize the presentations and discussions of the meeting. METHODS: During this meeting, the progress of FAIRification efforts since the first international meeting in 2019, new developments, stakeholder perspectives, and experiences from implementing FAIR data principles in practice were presented and discussed. RESULTS: Over 120 attendees representing various stakeholder groups (ie, patient organizations, clinicians, clinical and academic researchers, pharmaceutical companies, regulators, and EU organizations) from 22 countries participated in the meeting. This meeting report summarizes the presentations and discussions from the meeting, provides an overview of the key lessons learned since the first meeting, and outlines the next steps. CONCLUSIONS: Patient organizations are key drivers of the FAIRification process in practice and dialogue with stakeholders is critical to success.