Northpond Ventures, SignalFire and P5 Health Ventures have helped San Francisco-based clinical trial software firm Hawthorne Effect complete a $20 million first formal funding round.
The funding will be used to boost growth and help scale the company’s operations, it said in statement, and brings its total funding to $24 million.
Hawthorne, founded in 2015 but now running hard on the siteless trial craze, says its platform “decentralizes the entire lifecycle of a clinical trial by leveraging a robust tech-driven platform” by tapping its Hawthorne CloudSM system.
The tech allows it to complete assessments “whenever, wherever and however” the trial and patient require to deliver data to investigators.
Like so many other similar companies and platforms, Hawthorne has been boosted by the pandemic, which has necessitated the need for a hybrid trial system that can tap home-use wherever possible, using cloud-bases systems, telehealth and telemedicine.
Hawthorne said it is no one-trick pony, however, and addresses “key risk factors” that will extend “well beyond the pandemic,” including patient churn, missed assessments and lack of diversity in patient pools.
“Hawthorne Effect mitigates these factors by conducting trial assessments anywhere, whether it be virtual or at a home, church, shelter or clinic, and can maintain the highest levels of protocol integrity and improve data quality compared to site-reliant trials,” it said.
“We figured out that clinical trial continuity has the same root cause as equity gaps in healthcare delivery—accessibility and convenience for patients,” said Jodi Akin, CEO and founder of Hawthorne Effect. “While there is great momentum in the adoption of decentralized clinical trials, apps just don’t draw blood, nor do they reach the equity divide. Hawthorne Effect uniquely offers the only technology-enabled distributed professionals model that addresses these common barriers in clinical research.
“As a result, we help sponsors deliver complete and accurate trial assessments to benefit the entire clinical trial ecosystem. Our solution also addresses the historical disparities in representation when it comes to patient populations, and the future of public health hinges on closing this gap.”