A newly patented computerized system effectively chooses the right patient for the right clinical trial. The program quickly matches a registered patient’s molecular profile to a disease-targeting drug’s molecular design. According to the Moffit Cancer Center, the system will accelerate clinical trials and help reduce the time required for critical new drugs to reach the market.
Developing a drug is a long and complex process. On average, the process for getting new cancer drugs to market takes 15 years. However, the 3-phase clinical trials often require up to half of those 15 years. It is during these clinical trial phases that bottlenecks often occur and delay innovative drugs from reaching the patients who need them.
As scientists achieve better means of examining a tumor’s molecular profile, matching the appropriate patient to the appropriate clinical trial becomes increasingly significant. Unfortunately, the amount of data evaluation required to match molecular profiles has been an obstacle in the past.
Now, the newly patented computer system is designed to overcome that problem. With a database of thousands of patient-donated biological tissue or tumor samples, the system is designed to:
- Determine patients appropriate for clinical trials by matching an individual’s/drug’s molecular profile
- Match patients to clinical trials by a patient’s disease/diagnosis
- Match patients to clinical trials by their symptoms
- Match patients to clinical trials by their demographic information and family history
- Track a clinical trial participant’s disease progression compared to drug efficacy
Clinical trial selection is improved by the computer system by making the patient selection process less random. The technology has the potential to eliminate bottlenecks, overhaul the selection process, and shorten the timeline. Ultimately, the system will bring new drugs to market more efficiently.
Source: Moffitt Cancer Center.