Genentech has a long history of incorporating real-world data into its business, with the myocardial infarction registry it helped set up in the 1990s showing how to achieve better patient outcomes using its drug Activase. And the big biotech has now teamed with PatientsLikeMe to access patient-focused data and research tools.
The 5-year collaboration continues PatientsLikeMe's evolution into a biopharma service provider, a process that has seen it team up with UCB, CRO inVentiv Health and others. The Genentech deal is a step up from these arrangements, with PatientsLikeMe calling it the first broad research collaboration it has entered into with a drugmaker. Genentech will have access to data from PatientsLikeMe's network for research purposes and can use its clinical trial awareness tool.
PatientsLikeMe is packaging these offerings up as its Global Network Access and marketing the service to biopharma companies. Genentech is the first to sign up for the service, but PatientsLikeMe is keen to expand its user base and is tweaking its offering to make it more attractive to drug developers. "We're working on an enhanced version of this service that will help with design, recruitment and fulfillment of trials," PatientsLikeMe co-founder Ben Heywood told Outsourcing-Pharma.
The recruitment service is designed to overcome the trial enrollment bottleneck by matching patients in the PatientsLikeMe community to suitable studies. Genentech will make use of the service, while also using data generated by the PatientsLikeMe network to guide its research priorities.
- read the press release
- here's Outsourcing-Pharma's take