Platform designed to simplify process of matching, connecting patients to clinical trials
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A health technology startup in the United Kingdom has developed an online platform designed to streamline the process through which patients are matched and connected to appropriate clinical trials.
Clinical Net combines and structures data from multiple sources to provide a centralized resource through which physicians and patients can find easy-to-understand information about clinical trials, and find out within minutes if they match eligibility criteria.
A clinician can refer a patient to a trial site with one click and monitor the enrollment process remotely.
Patients can directly connect to the trial site involving their local medical team to request more information and initiate the pre-enrolment screening.
Clinical Net’s database includes more than 75,000 trials that are open and recruiting.
Denis Talbot, PhD, emeritus professor of cancer medicine at University of Oxford and Clinical Net advisory board member, said the people with cancer for whom he has cared often ask him if there are clinical trials in which they can participate.
“My answer, if I don’t happen to know of a trial, has always been, ‘I’ll check things out and get back to you,’” Talbot told Healio. “It’s very difficult to find trials that are easily navigable on the existing platforms. Using Clinical Net takes less than 5 minutes, and it’s possible for a clinician to find a trial that matches the patient and make that referral.”
Healio spoke with Talbot and Nuria Coll Bastus, PhD, Clinical Net’s founder and CEO, about the origins of the platform and how it is designed to streamline the process through which patients can be matched and directly connected to clinical trials.
Healio: What inspired you to create Clinical Net?
Coll Bastus: I have a background working in the pharmaceutical industry, where clinical development teams frequently requested support for delayed trials due to a lack of participants. Many regulations restrict us from promoting trials, which makes accrual difficult. I spoke to oncologists, and found that they are often not aware of clinical trials being conducted at other institutions. The most widely used way to look for trials is by visiting large clinical trial repositories like clincialtrials.gov, but that is incredibly time consuming. In reality, the main way oncologists learn about clinical trials is through peer newsletters or emails.
While I was working in the pharmaceutical industry, several friends and family members reached out about loved ones who were diagnosed with metastatic cancer and were told nothing could be done. They were having a difficult time finding clinical trials. This gave me the idea for a central hub for clinical trials that is accessible to physicians and patients and written in lay language.
I used this as a case study for my MBA, which focused on the process of launching a startup. After a few months, an angel investor offered for me to leave my job in pharma to create the platform as designed in my MBA. I accepted the offer, and that is how the company started.”
Healio: How does Clinical Net differ from clinicaltrials.gov and other platforms?
Coll Bastus: Clinicaltrials.gov has the advantage of listing over 80% of clinical trials globally, but it only has basic filters and is presented in medical language. This makes it time consuming for healthcare professionals to find the right trial, and difficult for patients to navigate the eligibility criteria. Other platforms are more user friendly but may not include all trials and can’t filter to the level that we can. Additionally, they do not directly connect patients to the clinical trial site.
We used an orchestrated set of advanced AI tools to structure eligibility criteria on our platform. The incorporation of large language models (LLMs) like GPT to the set allowed to make it scalable. The platform filters trials to the last eligibility criteria, giving patients an eligibility score for each trial. In 5 minutes, a patient gets a list of the top two or three trials with corresponding eligibility scores, and offers the option to directly connect to the trial teams to request more information and go throw pre-enrolment screening.
Healio: How can this tool benefit clinicians, patients and trial sponsors?
Talbot: As a medical oncologist with over 30 years’ experience in conducting clinical trials and treating patients with cancer, I’ve also been involved in all sectors of clinical trials, including design, ethics, monitoring and regulatory processes.
Clinical Net helps medical teams because it enables them to match a patient to a trial and make a referral at the same time.
For patients, the platform is EU General Data Protection Regulation-compliant, ensuring confidentiality and data protection. It is written in clear, lay language that is easily accessible.
Clinical trial sponsors often struggle with recruitment, which can be costly due to overruns and Clinical Research Organizations (CROs). Clinical Net is free for patients, families, investigators, trial sites and patient advocacy groups, who are keen to signpost our platform on their websites, allowing patient access and provide advice on trial availability.
Clinical Net is particularly beneficial for rare cancers, as it allows recruitment across a wide geographical area.
Healio: How is it performing so far?
Coll Bastus: In June, we launched the third version of the platform with LLMs implemented on it. We have more than 10,000 users, and this growth has been mostly organic rather than the result of advertising. We also presented it at a few national conferences.
Healio: What do you have planned for Clinical Net’s future?
Coll Bastus: To continue to grow, our next step is to raise more funding from investors. We’re a small team, and we have exciting plans to enhance the service we provide. Our investors are positive about the advances we’ve made this year, and they believe we can raise another funding run for a few million dollars at the end of this year so we can expand our team and increase awareness about the platform. We also have been talking to pharmaceutical companies and large research organizations with interest in establishing collaborations.
Talbot: Patients often express a need to understand more about what clinical trials are and the condition they have. We are planning, in the near future, to provide educational information in lay language on our platform, including disease specific information and how clinical trials are conducted.
Another possibility for Clinical Net is to provide enhanced clinical trial monitoring. This enables clinical sites access, monitor and manage their trials on the site. Sponsors can interrogate the platform for metrics on recruitment rates, referral routes, and which principal investigators attract the most referrals. There is a whole raft of potential uses by so many different groups.
Reference:
- Clinical Net. Available at: https://trials.clinicalnet.com/.
For more information:
Nuria Coll Bastus, PhD, can be reached at nuria@clinicalnet.com.
Denis Talbot, PhD, can be reached at denis.talbot@oncology.ox.ac.uk.
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