Month: July 2024

July 2024

AccessCMD: Next-generation Cardiometabolic Cohort hits 2000 patient milestone in less than 4 months

Providing researchers with unparalleled opportunity to access novel endpoints

London, UK, July 10, 2024 – Healthcare evidence-generation and technology company uMed have announced the successful enrollment of over 2,000 participants into their AccessCMD Cardiometabolic Cohort less than 4 months after starting enrollment. 

The exponential growth of the cohort within this short time frame highlights the commitment of patients within this disease area to engage in research, and showcases the effectiveness of uMed’s unique model in providing research access that has previously been unavailable.

AccessCMD is a novel decentralised registry and integrated clinical research platform, ethics committee-approved under a master protocol framework. As with all uMed Cohorts, AccessCMD is powered by the Company’s ACCESS Research Platform which is partnered with a vast network of healthcare institutions in the UK and US. This enables rapid and targeted identification of patients via their health record data, and engagement via SMS, email, letter and phone, on behalf of their healthcare institution. Upon invitation to the cohort, patients provide their consent to be re-contacted for the collection of additional data or participate in additional research studies. 

Participants within AccessCMD actively contribute data from their Electronic Medical Records (EMR), genetic tests, wearable devices and patient-reported outcome surveys, offering an unparalleled opportunity for researchers within this disease area to access novel endpoints.

“From the rapid growth we have seen with AccessCMD it is clear that patients are willing and eager to participate in research, they just need to be provided the opportunity to do so, and at uMed we are empowering this unique access.

We achieve this through a combination of tailored communication on behalf of the patients’ trusted healthcare provider, offering research opportunities that are highly relevant to the individual’s health circumstances, and allowing patients to participate from the comfort of their own home” commented Anil Jina, MD. Chief Medical Officer at uMed.

With the rise in global obesity and related diseases, cardiometabolic research is capturing the attention of research groups as they work towards the development of new therapies and tools to address this health crisis. 

The potential for these therapies to benefit such a large proportion of the population is evident, however a challenge for researchers at all stages of the therapy lifecycle is the ability to access the required data points from large enough representative sub-cohorts.

Cardiometabolic disease describes numerous conditions, each interacting through intricate pathways and mechanisms that vary among individuals, many of which remain incompletely understood. Therefore researchers are often faced with the obstacles of finding a sufficient number of patients that meet their very specific study criteria, and obtaining the necessary endpoints needed to answer their research questions. Available databases and registries are static, preventing the easy collection of custom data, and site-based research is time consuming and expensive to set-up. 

“We’ve seen the huge impact of recent therapeutic developments within cardiometabolics, and for the many researchers now entering this field,   accessibility and speed are key.” commented Dr Matt Wilson, CEO & Founder of uMed.  “uMed is bridging the evidence gaps that currently exist between static databases and site-based studies, enabling the rapid collection of custom datasets without the requirement to start studies from scratch. AccessCMD presents researchers with a large cohort of pre-consented patients that researchers can rapidly re-contact to access additional custom endpoints to augment the expanding baseline dataset. ” 

“The rate of growth of AccessCMD is compelling and the potential for further growth is exciting.  Over a quarter of the population in the UK have risk factors, such high BMI, for serious cardiometabolic diseases. uMed’s integration with healthcare institutions across the UK is providing access to a large number of these patients. If we extrapolate the rate of growth we are seeing in AccessCMD to these wider population numbers, we expect to be able to improve access for patients to relevant research studies and to present researchers with important opportunities to extend their research to groups who have been historically underserved.” commented Dr Mark Toshner, Chief Investigator of AccessCMD

AccessCMD is currently recruiting patients across the UK via uMed’s healthcare network, with plans to launch the Cohort in the US by the end of 2024.

July 2024

AccessPD: a valuable tool to address evidence gaps in device remote monitoring of Parkinson’s disease

Guidance released by NICE earlier this year considers how people living with Parkinson’s Disease and their carers could benefit from remote device technologies, and the clinical and cost effectiveness of the use of the technologies. Remote monitoring devices provide Parkinson’s Disease (PD) symptom data that enables clinicians to make better informed decisions about the care they provide, which in turn supports patients with improved symptom management and quality of life.

The guidance highlights the currently insufficient evidence surrounding the impact of using these devices in the NHS on quality of life of Parkinson’s patients and their carers, and a lack of clarity about how these devices affect NHS resources.  Therefore, NICE recommends that more evidence is generated whilst these technologies are being used in the NHS.

To support this, NICE has released an evidence generation plan which outlines the evidence gaps and what real-world data needs to be collected for a review of the technologies again in the future. 

uMed’s AccessPD Cohort is referred to in this document as a valuable resource for setting up research studies.

AccessPD: A Unique Approach to Evidence Generation

AccessPD is a novel decentralised registry and integrated clinical research platform that provides researchers with access to evidence that doesn’t exist in other databases.

NICE highlights AccessPD as a valuable data source to address the evidence gaps that exist with the use of these technologies in the NHS. 

Within the context of the outlined plan, AccessPD provides opportunities to immediately commence a longitudinal parallel cohort study, for the ongoing collection of data on the use of these technologies, from a pre-consented cohort of patients with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease.

AccessPD allows:

  • Data beyond that routinely available: Participants within AccessPD are actively contributing data from their Electronic Medical Records (EMR), genetic tests, wearable devices used at-home and patient-reported outcome surveys. This provides access to a rich source of regulatory grade data which can then be augmented with the collection of additional custom data as required to answer specific research questions.

  • Immediate data collection: The AccessPD master protocol is ethics approved, so researchers can begin collecting data immediately.

  • Population-wide patient access: AccessPD comprises nearly 1000 pre-consented participants with a diagnosis of Parksinson’s Disease. The cohort is powered by uMed’s ACCESS Research Platform which is embedded across a vast network of healthcare institutions across the UK. This enables rapid and targeted identification of patients via their health record data, and engagement on behalf of their healthcare institution.
  • Dedicated Patient support: For Parkinson’s Disease patients, communication and technology may be a barrier to participation. AccessPD provides a dedicated patient support team that can help participants and carers through the study process. This leads to improved participation, and representation of a wider patient population.
  • Pre-consented, research ready patients: Upon invitation to the cohort, patients provide their consent to be re-contacted for the collection of additional data or participate in additional research studies. This means we can rapidly contact patients to collect additional data, without having to restart the recruitment and/or consent process from scratch.
  • Alleviate pressure on study budget and staff resource: uMed facilitates device delivery and remote training, as well as data collection and aggregation, which would otherwise need to be factored into resource and study budgets.

If you’d like to discuss how uMed’s AccessPD can provide access to the evidence required for your research project please contact our team at hello@umed.io.