Medable has had a strong 12 months, with the pandemic putting its siteless trial approach on the map and helping it make millions in funding; now, it’s hired a prestigious chief scientific officer in Pamela Tenaerts, M.D.
Tenaerts comes on board after her tenure as executive director of the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI) out of Duke University, a public-private partnership co-founded in 2007 by Duke and the FDA that focuses on boosting quality and efficiency of clinical trials across the industry and academia.
Before her time at CTTI, Tenaerts oversaw European operations for CoAxia, a medical device company focused on cerebral ischemia. At Medable, she will now switch gears again, helping the company drive its decentralized trial platform.
And she comes to the company in good health: At the end of last year, it grabbed a major $91 million series C, which was a huge jump on its two previous rounds, more than doubling in one the $45 million previously made in two.
This also came after the firm penned a series of deals with life science contractors including the likes of Datavant, PPD and Covance as it looked to help CROs navigate choppy pandemic waters with its siteless trial model.
In March this year, it added Seqster to that growing list of partners, tapping its real-world data platform that works in real time, including the use of electronic health records, genomic data, fitness wearables data and social determinants of health.
There has been a real boon for these types of companies over the past year, as the COVID-19 crisis has ripped through the globe and halted thousands of trials, leaving regulators to recommend using the sort of virtual/siteless model Medable and others, like Science 37, offer.
This saw Medable grow its revenue by 500% last year as more companies signed up for its services, which allows trial teams to combine real-world health records, claims, diagnostic information and other sources with their clinical trial data.
In essence, its model slashes the need for in-patient site visits and allows complex research protocols to be conducted remotely through its platform. During a pandemic in which social distancing and lockdowns have become the norm, this has been a necessity to get trials going and keep them on track.
As Medable’s CSO, Tenaerts will lead evidence collection around patient centricity, efficiency and quality in decentralized trials, working with its existing science leaders to expand Medable’s digital biomarkers work with the National Institutes of Health and others.
She will also work on best practices and bring clinical insight into Medable’s continued work on a master protocol approach to multi-study research, the company said. “And with more than one million participants currently on the Medable platform, Dr. Tenaerts will create ways to keep participants engaged for potential future clinical trial participation,” it added.
“The U.S. is losing the battle against chronic disease, but decentralized trials offer a different path forward,” said Tenaerts.
“Currently, less than 10% of Americans participate in research, a number that has been stagnant for years. Decentralizing trials with the Medable platform offers a reality where clinical trials are deployed for many more to participate, and for actionable evidence to be generated reliably, seamlessly and faster than current models.”