NEW YORK – Contract research organization Worldwide Clinical Trials on Tuesday said it is partnering with molecular diagnostics firm Invitae to improve patient enrollment in rare disease studies.
Under the partnership, Worldwide Clinical Trials will use Invitae's real-world data platform, dubbed Explorer, to access aggregated insights on the prevalence, incidence, demographics, geography, epidemiology, and genetics of rare diseases. Worldwide Clinical Trials is hoping to use this information to more efficiently identify patients eligible for trials and pinpoint where to open sites for studies investigating new treatments for rare diseases.
It's challenging to identify rare disease patients for clinical trials, since these illnesses occur so infrequently. In the US a rare disease is one that occurs in fewer than 200,000 people, and in the EU a rare disease is defined as one that occurs in five out of 10,000 people.
"This is a game-changer for both our sponsors and patients enrolled in clinical trials," Worldwide Clinical Trials co-CEO and President Peter Benton said in a statement. "Our unique access to Invitae's database provides us with superior visibility to an aggregate-level view of patients we otherwise wouldn't be aware of and enables us to offer advanced clinical trial strategies to our sponsors."
According to Worldwide Clinical Trials, it is the first CRO to use Invitae's Explorer tool.