We are addressing the most distressing of barriers- patient awareness of trials and which are right for them. This is a joint effort to coordinate between hospitals/ providers and patients to directly facilitate the care they need. As a physician and having recently had look for trials for my own mother, I found navigating the landscape difficult and cumbersome. With our app, we hope to provide a seamless platform that 1.) notifies the patient what they are eligible for, 2.) explains the process in simple terms, and 3.) connects them with the right people. The next phase of the company (already underway in initial phases) is to provide a platform for physicians to manage the trials on their end.
Obstacles include patient acquisition and physician acquisition. Patient acquisition will be done via working with charitable foundations that patients turn to for help. We will also do direct marketing to message boards (like
inspire.org) in order to reach out to those who may be more technologically driven. Physician acquisition will be done via partnerships with large medical institutions and organizations (such as AAPI, mentioned in separate document).
I anticipate double the accrual rates (compared to previous reports). While it is impossible to prove this, the climate of communication and consumer (patient) targeting is changing. We can now leverage outlets like social media (Facebook targeted advertising) or google adwords to better hyper focus on potential participants. For instance, anyone who "likes" a certain non-profit on Facebook would then see potential trial options on the right of the page. Public companies have found tremendous success in this realm and I believe it's time for healthcare to utilize this in order to improve patient care and outcomes.
As we expand as a team, we hope to hire a sales force to interface with physicians across the country and demonstrate the benefit of patient education on study opportunities. We also plan to partner with pharmaceutical companies to expand visibility at national meetings and conferences.
Our development team is well-versed in HIPAA compliance (some of our members have previously been contracted by the department of defense). We will take the utmost precautions and make patient privacy of paramount importance.
There are a few companies currently in the space, including TrialX and TrialReach which are targeting the patient connect aspect. We want to separate ourselves by not only providing a simplified patient application, but also providing benefits to the providers as well (by creating a portal to help them manage the trials with built in analytics). This will streamline the process and provide more contextual information that can spur breakthroughs and drive further innovation in the field.