Company’s StudyTeam platform harmonizes biopharma and research site workflows, introducing a new paradigm for clinical research that brings therapies to patients sooner
BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Reify Health, provider of leading cloud-based solutions that connect and empower the clinical trial ecosystem, today announced a $30 million Series B funding round led by Battery Ventures. Reify developed its platform, StudyTeam, to upgrade the systems that healthcare staff at clinical research sites depend on to run trials. By bringing them onto a shared platform with biopharma sponsors, Reify has helped the industry dramatically accelerate clinical trial enrollment and reduce workloads for stakeholders across the ecosystem.
“The life science industry spends over four billion dollars every year on technologies aimed at making clinical trials more efficient,” said Ralph Passarella, CEO and co-founder, Reify Health. “Yet, very little of that investment goes towards technology that helps the frontline healthcare staff who enroll and care for patients. If we want to make clinical trials faster, cheaper, and more predictable, the industry can’t keep building technology that increases efficiency for some but decreases efficiency for those working directly with patients. We decided that we needed to change that.”
StudyTeam systematically eliminates redundant work across the clinical trial process while generating novel insights that speed up trials. For example, staff at research sites spend hours each week manually copying information about patient recruitment and enrollment from their own systems into sponsor logs so that sponsors have the insights they need to manage and optimize enrollment. With StudyTeam, this hours-long task takes just a few minutes, enabling site staff to spend more time with patients. At the same time, sponsors gain better insights for making real-time enrollment decisions. As a result, StudyTeam accelerates enrollment, on average, by 6 weeks per trial. When 80 percent of trials fail to recruit enough patients on time, this improvement can be seismic.
“The COVID pandemic has shed light at a global scale how much clinical trial speed matters. While the world sits and waits for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, we should also remember that patients suffering from numerous conditions such as Alzheimer’s and late stage breast cancer have been waiting on clinical trials for years,” said Michael Lin, co-founder and executive chairman, Reify Health. “At Reify we’ve made it our job to build solutions that streamline work for both research sites and biopharma sponsors so that patients get access to therapies sooner. Doing so has required us to overhaul how we think about solution categories, software business models, and the relationships across the entire clinical trial ecosystem.”
Reify’s StudyTeam platform is used by 1,800 research sites across 26 countries and by half of the top-20 global biopharma companies, including Eli Lilly and Company and Amgen. The platform has been so effective in improving enrollment dynamics between research sites and sponsors that several top-20 biopharma companies are in the process of implementing the product across their global research portfolios.
“Reducing the burden on research sites and helping them work more effectively is critical for our industry to run faster, more predictable clinical trials,” said Amy Davis, senior director of clinical development for oncology at Eli Lilly and Company. “Lilly partnered with Reify Health to accomplish that work together and we are pleased with the progress we’ve made so far, and look forward to rolling out StudyTeam across our entire research portfolio.”
Battery Ventures led the financing round with participation from previous investors including Sierra Ventures and Asset Management Ventures. The funding will drive the continued expansion of Reify’s StudyTeam enrollment solution and accelerate additional platform solutions.
“We see tremendous opportunity for Reify Health to transform the life sciences industry and are thrilled to partner with them to bring life-saving drugs to patients faster,” said Neeraj Agrawal, general partner at Battery Ventures. “Healthcare staff have no shortage of tools being ‘pushed’ to them by trial sponsors and can be jaded about new software as a result. It is fascinating to see how much clinical research sites love using StudyTeam, so much so that they proactively reach out to sponsors to get them onboard. This results in a high level of product ‘stickiness’ that creates unprecedented insights for sponsors and underlies the value of the platform to the entire ecosystem.”
For more information about Reify Health, visit www.reifyhealth.com or follow them on LinkedIn.
About Reify Health
Reify Health provides cloud-based software that accelerates the development of new and life-saving therapies. Reify serves the global life science industry, including thousands of clinical research sites, the most innovative biotechs, and the world’s largest biopharmaceutical companies. The global healthcare system relies on clinical trials to develop new, life-saving treatments for patients. Reify Health’s StudyTeam software empowers both the research sponsors who drive clinical trials forward and the doctors and research coordinators who care for patient volunteers so that they can devote more focus and time toward the work that results in successful clinical research. To learn more, visit www.reifyhealth.com.
Contacts
Danielle Kirsch
PAN Communications
reifyhealth@pancomm.com