New Global Industry Coalition That Aims to Dramatically Increase Access for All Patients Populations in Clinical Trials and Research
New York, NY, Jan 4, 2021 — ConsenSys Health joins an historic alliance of more than sixty life sciences and healthcare organizations that seeks to accelerate the broad adoption of patient-focused, decentralized clinical trials and research. The Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance (DTRA), which launched December 10th, 2020, plans to unite industry stakeholders, including healthcare companies, regulators, patient groups and research organizations with a singular mission to make clinical trial participation widely accessible by advancing policies, research practices and new technologies in decentralized clinical research.
“We are thrilled to be a Founding Member of this historic alliance,” said ConsenSys Health Founder and CEO, Heather Flannery. “We believe that converging exponential technologies like blockchain, federated confidential computing, and zero-knowledge cryptography will advance decentralized clinical trials in ways that were logistically impossible just a few years ago. The current pandemic has reinforced the need to apply these transformative tools now.”
“Transformational change is never easy,” noted ConsenSys Health Chief Scientific Officer Sean Manion, PhD. “The challenges of 2020 have accelerated this change across healthcare and life sciences organizations. In DTRA we see the joint public/private recognition of this reality. This Alliance demonstrates the resolve to utilize all available tools to accelerate open, accessible, transparent and validated clinical trials and advance better health outcomes across the globe.”
“We are extremely gratified to welcome ConsenSys Health to the Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance,” said Amir Kalali, MD, founder of several collaborative life science communities and co-convenor of DTRA. “By advancing decentralized research we can make the clinical trial process more patient-focused, increase trial efficiency and encourage use of technologies. We are excited by ConsenSys Health’s commitment to embracing decentralized trials and to changing the culture that has been the rate limiter to innovation.”
Experts estimate that COVID-19 may set back non-pandemic clinical trials by several years due to prospective patients’ inability or reluctance to schedule visits at physical research locations. Decentralized approaches to conducting research facilitate participation by a more diverse patient population and could ease COVID-19-imposed difficulties for both patients and clinical investigators. Inclusion of representative patient populations in clinical trials by race, age and geographic location has long been an operational challenge. COVID-19 has amplified the disparities and inclusion biases that have become hurdles for potential trial participants.
“Now is the time to share ideas and insights that will chart the future course of clinical trials, accelerating drug development and saving lives – and, by taking part in the DTRA, ConsenSys Health is demonstrating its leadership to drive change,” said Craig Lipset, DTRA co-convener, clinical innovation advisor, and a pioneer in decentralized trials. “We have a responsibility to advance the health of people with unmet medical needs, and, by convening stakeholders from pharma companies, regulators, technology leaders and patient communities, we can remove remaining barriers to adoption and impact patients today.”
ConsenSys Health joins with its peer DTRA Member organizations to provide expertise to identify and address gaps and needs and to advance best practices through effective education and communication. ConsenSys Health urges other organizations interested in taking part to visit DTRA.org
ABOUT CONSENSYS HEALTH: ConsenSys Health is a strategic product and advisory spin-off from ConsenSys AG, the software engineering leader of the blockchain space who offers the most trusted Ethereum blockchain solutions. ConsenSys Health’s platform, Elevated ComputeTM, converges blockchain, federated analytics and machine learning, decentralized secure inference, verifiable credentials, digital identity, data ownership and privacy-preserving confidential computing. Follow ConsenSys Health on LinkedIn and Twitter.
ABOUT DTRA: The Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance (DTRA) was convened to enable collaboration of stakeholders to accelerate the adoption of patient-focused, decentralized clinical trials and research within life sciences and healthcare through education and research. It works to make research participation accessible to everyone, enabled by the consistent, widespread adoption of appropriate decentralized research methods. Follow DTRA on Twitter and LinkedIn for more information.
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For further information please contact:
Betsy Dalton, ConsenSys Health betsy.dalton@equideum.health 843-364-9817