17 Jan Opinion: Technology can make clinical trials equitable and accessible

By Kenneth C. Frazier, Robin Washington, and Elena Viboch, Digital Health Business & Technology

From COVID-19 vaccines to cancer immunotherapies, biotechnology touches lives and new therapeutics can be transformative. On average, it takes 14 years from target discovery research to the approval of a novel medicine. However, for every successful drug discovery, nine fail in clinical trials. This is a critical part of the process—and one that the public relies on heavily—to ensure that therapeutics are safe and effective prior to approval for use. The global clinical contract research organization market was estimated to be $47 billion in 2021. Biotech companies spend a lot of money running clinical trials.

And yet, in addition to high costs, patient access is limited. It is estimated that less than 5% of cancer patients enroll in clinical trials and those that do enroll are faced with a highly fragmented and poor patient experience. Participation tends to be concentrated among well insured and relatively affluent patients with access to academic medical centers. Lack of patient access to clinical trials compounds existing social disparities in healthcare. As precision medicine grows in importance, these social disparities may widen as diverse populations are not included in the development of genetically targeted medicines. Read more …