Bristol Myers teamed up with ConcertAI, a developer of real-world evidence (RWE) solutions, early in 2019 to use its partner’s data and technologies in parts of its research enterprise. The collaboration led to Bristol Myers helping to shape ConcertAI’s digital trial solution, as Jeff Elton, CEO of the RWE startup, explained.
“With that foundation of working together on an array of new innovations, we were able to set demanding standards for what digital trial solutions would provide, bring years of experience to bear, access narrow expertise rapidly, and predictably move the solution into use,” said Elton.
In discussing how Bristol Myers helped to shape the clinical trial offering, Elton explained that building novel solutions in a regulated industry “requires enormous domain and technical expertise” and “a lot of integration across multiple functions and groups within the company.”
The result is a solution designed to ultimately reduce or eliminate duplicative data entry and constant data monitoring, thereby freeing clinical research staff to focus their time on patient care. ConcertAI has set up the solution to integrate directly into practices' clinical workflows, including electronic medical records, imaging and lab systems, to improve the identification of potential research participants.
Bristol Myers has now enrolled its first participant through the Digitally Accelerated Clinical Trial model, a milestone that its vice president, R&D business insights and analytics, said demonstrates the company’s “commitment to use data and technology to simplify and accelerate the clinical research process.”
ConcertAI's first deployments are underway and it has a schedule of network expansions planned for the coming months as it works to create “the largest digitally enabled oncology, hematology and urology research capacity in the industry.” Elton outlined how the solution reflects the needs of sites.
“Each site has a set of technical solutions integrated into its clinical workflows and supporting the research team,” the CEO said. “While the tools and solutions are standard, healthcare clinical and research administrative systems vary tremendously, so there can be a modest to a heavy lift to put these into place.”
