Massive Bio aims to make JIT site model suitable for all clinical trials: CEO

06-Aug-2019 - Last updated on 06-Aug-2019 at 15:01 GMT

(Image: Getty/BrianAJackson)

Massive Bio is looking to create the world’s largest AI-enabled ‘just-in-time’ oncology site network to accelerate study recruitment – and believes that 15-20% of advanced-stage cancer patients can be enrolled in clinical trials, says CEO.

Massive Bio is an advisory services company, providing artificial intelligence (AI) enabled clinical trial matching and other services to contract research originations (CROs) and pharmaceutical companies.

The NY-based company recently launched a global partnership network, or ‘Hub,’ through which it aims to build the world’s largest AI-enabled just-in-time (JIT) precision oncology clinical trial network.

Selin Kurnaz, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Massive Bio, said the company initially developed the network in response to challenges facing the current JIT model in terms of scalability and technology.

“The goal is to make JIT site model suitable for all clinical trials and enable access to large patient populations as opposed to using JIT for extremely challenging clinical trials with extremely hard to find patients,” Kurnaz told us.

The ‘Hub,’ will include JIT vendors, provider networks, in addition to Massive Bio, and pharmaceutical companies will be added ‘overtime’ in an effort further understand industry pain points.

With the scalability of JIT, the Massive Bio believes that 15-20% of advanced-stage cancer patients can be enrolled in clinical trials, Kurnaz said, adding that the company can set up JIT sites in as little as two weeks.

The benefits of JIT networks include the ability to bring the site to the patient and eliminate travel of the patient, she explained. The challenge is a lack of resources, technology, and infrastructures at community sites.

Massive Bio will provide various services to the Hub, including AI-based pre-screening at scale with minimal human supervision, clinical research coordinator support, medical record structuring, next-generation sequencing (NGS), as well as protocol development. It also will provide real-world data analytics and publication as part of its SYNERGY AI study.

Said Kurnaz, “There is a significant need to play in the end-to-end value chain of patient recruitment in clinical trials in oncology and Massive Bio is at the front and center to do the leap frog for thousands of clinical trials in clinical trials.gov.”