NorthWest EHealth (NWEH) has announced a pilot of a new model for safely and securely finding participants for clinical trials, using the Medicine and Healthcare product Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) data services. This initiative aims to improve the speed, scale, inclusivity and representativeness of participants found for novel clinical trials.
Current approaches to finding suitable participants for clinical trials can frequently take weeks or months, often leading to more costs and delays. The new model being piloted combines the speed of NWEH’s innovative and secure platform for feasibility studies and find-and-refer services, FARSITE, with more than 18-million anonymised patient records, provided by the CPRD data service. This new approach would mean more diverse and inclusive clinical trials in the UK. as well as finding participants more quickly and efficiently.
NWEH is a Manchester based pioneer in clinical trial technologies, using transformative solutions and expertise to streamline clinical trial management, for trials that are smarter, faster and truer-to-life. FARSITE is a secure platform which enables rapid feasibility across a representative population, while preserving participant anonymity. It finds trial participants with pin-point accuracy thanks to easy-to-use inclusion and exclusion criteria when inputting information. This unlocks potential participant pools for find-and-refer services who are then contacted directly by their GP practices, increasing opportunities for people to participate in clinical trials.
If successful, the new model could result in enhanced innovation and efficiencies in medical research, improving public access to clinical trials to support the discovery and validation of advanced approaches to treatment and be expanded across the UK.
“We are excited to announce this pilot initiative, which aims to support the nation’s life sciences sector by accelerating and optimising the set-up of clinical trials in the UK,” said Jonathan Wogel, Chief Executive Officer of NWEH. “By combining our agile and innovative FARSITE technology with CPRD data, clinical trial feasibility and find-and-refer services can be conducted more quickly, with more precise determination of the most relevant clinical trial participants, including under-served populations. This, in turn, can reduce costs and support more robust studies optimised to help improve health outcomes for patients, once again positioning the UK as a leader in clinical research.”