In its 9 years in operation, PatientsLikeMe has recruited more than 200,000 members, culling data on symptoms, treatments and responses from disease sufferers around the world. Now, in its first deal with a CRO, the company has paired up with inVentiv Health ($VTIV) to help recruit for clinical trials.
Under the deal, PatientsLikeMe's members will be looped in on the trials in inVentiv's pipeline, giving them access to potentially successful therapies and helping inVentiv find ideal patients for its sponsors.
"inVentiv Health will be able to quickly recruit potential trial participants by tapping into one of the fastest-growing and most active patient networks online, so that our customers can speed up the development of drugs, devices and treatments to improve patients' lives," inVentiv Health Clinical President Raymond Hill said in a statement.
The deal gets to the core of PatientsLikeMe's mission, Executive Vice President Michael Evers said, removing barriers between the people who suffer from diseases and the researchers working to treat them. And inVentiv, with its broad network of pharma sponsors, was the ideal partner to bridge the gap, Evers said.
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| Raymond Hill, EVP of clinical at InVentiv |
For inVentiv, the deal falls in line with its recent efforts to improve clinical trial technology. Last week, the company partnered with Medikly to create an online database of physicians, designed to speed up the recruitment of investigators. In March, the CRO bought an equity stake in Mytrus, which makes technology that allows trial sponsors to use electronic informed consent.
- read the announcement
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