NorthWest EHealth (NWEH) announces a pilot to test a new model for finding and recruiting participants for clinical trials using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink

• The pilot aims to speed up the process for safely and securely finding participants for UK clinical trials, improving efficiencies and opportunities for people to take part in research and access innovative new medicines.
• The pilot will test a new model combining NWEH's secure, tried and tested FARSITE platform, with the scale and depth of CPRD's 18-million anonymised patient records, using secure and remote access, without transferring data between the organisations, enabling clinical trial feasibility studies and find-and-refer services at a speed and scale not previously possible in the UK. 

MANCHESTER, England, Nov. 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- NorthWest EHealth (NWEH) has announced a pilot of a new model for safely and securely finding participants for clinical trials, using the Medicine and Healthcare product Regulatory Agency's (MHRA) Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) data services. This initiative aims to improve the speed, scale, inclusivity and representativeness of participants found for novel clinical trials.

Current approaches to finding suitable participants for clinical trials can frequently take weeks or months, often leading to more costs and delays. The new model being piloted combines the speed of NWEH's secure FARSITE platform with more than 18-million anonymised patient records, provided by the CPRD data service. This new approach would mean more diverse and inclusive clinical trials in the UK, as well as finding participants more quickly and efficiently.

NWEH's FARSITE is a secure platform that enables rapid feasibility across a representative population, while preserving participant anonymity. It accurately finds potential trial participants with pin-point accuracy through easy-to-use inclusion and exclusion criteria when inputting information. This unlocks potential participant pools for find-and-refer services who are then contacted directly by their GP practices, increasing opportunities for people to participate in clinical trials.

If successful, the new model could result in enhanced innovation and efficiencies in medical research, improving public access to clinical trials, to support the discovery and validation of advanced approaches to treatment and be expanded across the UK.

Jonathan Wogel, Chief Executive Officer of NWEH, said: "We are excited to announce this pilot initiative, which aims to support the nation's life sciences sector by accelerating and optimising the set-up of clinical trials in the UK. By combining our agile and innovative FARSITE technology with CPRD data, clinical trial feasibility and find-and-refer services can be conducted more quickly, with more precise determination of the most relevant clinical trial participants, including under-served populations. This, in turn, can reduce costs and support more robust studies optimised to help improve health outcomes for patients, once again positioning the UK as a leader in clinical research."

Notes to editors

About NorthWest EHealth (NWEH) and the FARSITE platform

NWEH is a Manchester based pioneer in clinical trial technologies, using transformative solutions and expertise to streamline clinical trial management, for trials that are smarter, faster and truer-to-life.

NWEH transformative technology is tried and tested with in-house expertise to streamline clinical trial delivery, for trials that are smarter, faster and truer-to-life. NWEH's technology is powered for precision. From complex trial criteria to data insights, NWEH's robust experience and services deliver clinical trials that are accurate, consistent, and reliable.

FARSITE is a secure platform which enables rapid feasibility across a representative population, while preserving participant anonymity. It unlocks potential participant pools for find-and-refer services who can be then be contacted directly by their GP practices, increasing opportunities for people to participate in clinical trials. Since its launch in 2009 the unique FARSITE platform has recruited over 20,000 participants to clinical trials in the UK, improving the speed and efficiency of clinical research.

NWEH is proud to be supporting the UK in its ambitions to re-establish the nation as a clinical research hub and global science superpower. For more information, please visit: www.nweh.co.uk

About the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) and anonymised primary care (NHS) data sets

CPRD is the MHRA's real-world data service with 27% population coverage providing the life sciences sector with anonymised primary care (NHS) datasets that can be linked to other datasets. Researchers can access these datasets to design and run clinical projects and to deliver research outputs that can help to improve and safeguard public health.

CPRD data that are made available to external organisations for the purposes of approved observational research – following approval of a research protocol setting out the proposed use of CPRD data, and execution of a data sharing agreement – are anonymised in line with guidance issued by the Information Commissioner's Office.

For more information, please visit: cprd.com

Contacts:
Sean Deans, +44 (0) 7831 396860, sean.deans@ovidhealth.com
Will Brennan, +44 (0) 7464 245643, will.brennan@ovidhealth.com 

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