Announcing: NIH Grant to Enhance Drug Development with Real World Data & Our Device Census Report

One of the questions we are asked most often is how real world data can work in a clinical trial.

Embedded in this question is, of course, the knowledge that the data we’re generating with our wearables, phones and home sensors hold invaluable information about the people who are using them. The pursuit of useful, well-structured data gathered outside the clinic has been a longstanding priority in the pharma industry. Increasingly, digital endpoints can be used to indicate outcomes in between office visits in early-stage clinical trials and large-scale observational studies alike.

Also embedded in this question is the challenge that the whole industry faces of actually leveraging this data in a valuable way. Right now, the way we collect, pipe and analyze data is inefficient and messy. There are hundreds of wearable devices on the market and no clear way to determine any kind of winner.

That is why we are so proud to announce that we have been awarded a $225,000 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The solicitation called for “a centralized software platform to obtain wearable, implantable, and/or external device data and to facilitate analytics over multiple data streams to help aid cancer patients, clinician assessment, and clinical trial design.”

It’s rare that there is a contract that perfectly matches a company’s mission and technology foundation. We are so grateful that in the NIH, we’ve found a partner that is equally as committed to helping clinicians and researchers evidence the full value of real-world data.

We have also published our first ever Device Census Report, which profiles the wrist and body-word wearables market, comprised of over 170 brands and manufacturers.

With the Device Census Report, clinical researchers now have a definitive source to assist with device selection and comparison, assembled and maintained by experts with experience integrating wearables into studies and trials.

Download here: www.litmushealth.com

Through this grant and our own research, it’s clear that real-world data in clinical trials and the healthcare system more broadly is not far off. While we still have a long way to go — the maturation of the devices, the way in which we handle data in terms of both collection and management, and of course the regulatory environment, it’s clear wearables bring untapped potential to clinical trials, enabling researchers and clinicians to capture data at the point of experience.

We’ve always said that our goal is to make the whole world one clinical trial, and the industry is officially on board.