August 3, 2017 | July was full of exciting news in the clinical trial and healthcare community, including partnerships and products from WIRB-Copernicus Group, inVentiv Health, National Institutes of Health, and more.

WIRB-Copernicus Group announced that it has acquired Patient Genesis’ ConsentNow eConsent technology. ConsentNow enables healthcare, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies to share important information with patients during the informed consent process in a format that is both easy-to-use and easy-to-understand. The technology employs custom video and animation segments to educate patients and online knowledge assessment questions to determine their level of understanding. This multimedia experience is delivered directly to the patient using a tablet device at the clinical site. Press release

INC Research Holdings and inVentiv Health announced the successful completion of their previously announced merger. The combination creates the only fully integrated biopharmaceutical solutions organization, including an end-to-end CRO and CCO. INC Research/inVentiv Health will continue to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “INCR.” The combined company will be known as INC Research/inVentiv Health on an interim basis until a relaunch under a new brand in 2018. Press release

Adaptive Biotechnologies announced a translational collaboration with the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. Under this collaboration, the Adaptive immunoSEQ Platform will be used to more broadly incorporate TCR and BCR sequencing into select NCI-sponsored clinical trials. The goal is to apply this Platform to accurately measure and track immune repertoire dynamics that may drive response to different cancer immunotherapies. In line with NCI efforts to implement novel correlative strategies across select clinical trials and tumor types, expanding the use of immunosequencing by NCI investigators may help better understand and potentially predict response to novel immuno-modulatory agents. Both Adaptive and NCI/CTEP are committed to accelerating the clinical validation and utility of novel immune-based molecular biomarkers from tissue and/or blood of cancer patients to better inform treatment decisions. Press release

Circulation announced it has raised $10.5 million in Series A financing from a syndicate of leaders across the healthcare ecosystem, excited to create a new paradigm for delivery of people, products and services in healthcare. Flare Capital Partners and The Providence Service Corporation, co-lead the investment and are joined by Boston Children’s Hospital, Echo Health Ventures (a strategic collaboration of Cambia Health Solutions and Mosaic Health Solutions), Intermountain Healthcare Innovation Fund (a strategic investment vehicle of Intermountain Healthcare, managed by Healthbox), Humana, NextGen Venture Partners, and the world’s leading healthcare diagnostics company. Press release

Two industry innovators are joining forces to take the lead in real-world studies. Clinerion and Cisiv have formed a groundbreaking partnership to offer a revolutionary approach to observational research by enabling automated data transfer from electronic hospital records (EHRs) to electronic data capture (EDC). Clinerion’s Patient Recruitment System applies intelligent, patented informatics methodologies to extract and interpret information from EHRs, aggregating healthcare information across institutions and geographies to create one single, comprehensive real-time view. Cisiv’s Baseline Plus provides a flexible, cost effective, quick to implement and easy to use EDC system for non-expert users. Clinerion’s unique ability to screen EHR data, including coded information, data and free text, will integrate with Cisiv’s platform, Baseline Plus, to create a truly novel formula. The partnering of both companies’ patented technologies will reduce the data entry burden to physicians participating in observational studies, improve data quality, and enable smooth and rapid data collection in real-world settings. Press release

Clinical trials are the key to new cancer treatments. However, less than 3% of cancer patients participate in these types of studies. In the case of colorectal cancer, the number is less than half of that. The new online Clinical Trial Finder is one of the only databases with direct backend access to all trials posted on ClinicalTrials.gov as well as the National Cancer Institute, ensuring that new trials and the latest research are being added to the Clinical Trial Finder in real time. With the new Finder, patients are able to get personalized results based on location, biomarker, phase, stage and more. In addition, patients can choose to email their doctor or the Colon Cancer Alliance’s Patient/Family Support team all within the Finder portal. Press release

Başkent University’s hospital cluster is joining the Patient Recruitment System platform, giving their 4.5 million patients access to innovative treatments and therapies offered by cutting edge clinical research. Başkent University has its headquarters in Ankara. With over 1500 beds, the university has hospitals in seven further locations throughout Turkey. There are six general hospitals, in Ankara, Adana, Alanya, İstanbul, Konya, and İzmir; and four specialist centers: the Ayaş Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Center, the Yapracık Psico-Social Rehabilitation Center, Umitkoy Polyclinic and a further eight geographically distributed Dialysis Centers. With this move, Başkent University will gain the advantages of partnership with the Patient Recruitment System (PRS) platform: visibility to sponsors making trial siting decisions, increased speed and effectiveness in recruitment, increased efficiency in matching studies to the hospital’s own patient population. Sites can also make use of PRS, internally, for academic trials with the assurance of compliance to hospital-level data access permissions. Press release

RxEOB has added Ken Kolb of Richmond to their growing team as vice president of pharmacy analytics. Kolb will be responsible for the development of clinical content, pharmacy analytics and outcomes analysis. Kolb has extensive clinical, clinical management and informatics/health economics and outcomes research experience. In his 36-year career, he has acquired experience in a variety of settings -- pharmacy benefit management, hospital, outpatient, academia and clinical management -- and has been responsible for designing, managing and directing varied clinical management programs. He has served as primary investigator for many studies and has numerous publication credits and experience delivering presentations dealing with quality improvement, health informatics and pharmacokinetics. Press release

CRF Health announced that it has collaborated with a research group led by Ludwig Kappos at the University Hospital Basel (UHB) to develop an electronic implementation of the Neurostatus-Expanded Disability Status Scale (Neurostatus-EDSS), an established assessment and documentation tool for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) clinical trials. The newly developed electronic version of the Neurostatus-EDSS replaces the traditional paper forms which suffer from the typical associated issues, such as data inaccuracies and administration costs. Its ability to streamline data collection via an electronic form facilitates the capture of higher quality data and enables fast access to consistent data for further analysis. Press release