Elligo targets gender equality in trials: ‘There is still a long way to go’
According to the agreement, women seeing physicians affiliated with Women’s Health USA – a national network of women’s health, obstetrics and gynaecology practices – will have access to Elligo’s ‘Research Ready’ network.
The firm employs its ‘Goes Direct’ approach at these sites, to provide physicians with the staff, procedures, technology, and infrastructure required to conduct trials.
“Our community of Research Ready sites, including those participating through our Women’s Health USA partnership, allows us to quickly identify protocol-matching patients for study participation, which not only gets studies started sooner, but helps sponsors bring drugs to market faster,” Elligo president Chad Moore told us.
“Additionally, the data collected will come from a more diversified patient pool, potentially bringing light to a wider range of outcomes,” he added.
According to Moore, taking clinical research directly to physicians and patients will also help contract research organisations (CROs) save time and resources via improved patient recruitment, randomization and retention.
A female focus
The partnership will not only improve female access to therapies, but it “keeps women under the care of their trusted physician and makes participation more convenient by bringing these studies closer to home,” Moore told us.
It is important clinical research be specifically targeted to women, he added. “There are a number of indications – including endometriosis, uterine fibroids and certain infections – that impact only women. In recent years, we have seen an increase in clinical research activity for these types of studies.”
While Moore acknowledged recent improvements in female patient recruitment numbers, and women-targeted research, “There is still a long way to go to ensure the differences in gender are accounted for,” he said.
“More work is certainly needed to better understand how men and women vary in the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of medication, as there could potentially be underlying health and safety concerns,” he added.
The agreement expands on a partnership between Elligo and Consortia Health, agreed in June 2017, which saw the firm’s ‘Goes Direct’ approach extend to Consortia’s women’s clinic network in the US.
