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Redefining Patient Engagement Through Consumer Insights

In this article uMed’s CEO Matt Wilson discusses the untapped potential of harnessing data-led insights to drive personalized, meaningful consumer experiences within the healthcare sector. He examines how tailored communication and bespoke engagement throughout a patient’s healthcare journey has the potential to enhance health outcomes and reduce provider costs. And how it’s the key to opening up better engagement with clinical trials, new drugs and treatments, encouraging healthier behaviors and building trust with healthcare customers.

Read the full article here: Read Article

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Why Technology is Key to Unlocking Clinical Trial Access in Underserved Communities

A great article from our CEO Matt Wilson featured in The Journal of mHealth on the use of technology to address the challenges of access to clinical trial participation in underserved communities.

The article emphasizes the need to support smaller, local healthcare providers that serve as a gateway to underrepresented, less wealthy communities, to build trust and address the disparity in clinical trial participation.

Using technology can alleviate the organizational burden of clinical trials on these smaller providers, and embed recruitment in routine practice.

Additionally, technology provides opportunity for tailored patient outreach and the inclusion of non-English speakers, ultimately democratizing research and promoting diversity.

Read the full article here.

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uMed Partners with The Michael J. Fox Foundation

uMed Partners with The Michael J. Fox Foundation to Support Wide-scale Study Exploring Link Between Smell Loss and Parkinson’s

uMed partners with The Michael J. Fox Foundation to run its smell test study in the UK as part of a global programme to explore the link between smell loss and Parkinson’s disease
uMed will enroll eligible patients from over 500 primary care group providers and facilitate the distribution of 15,000 scratch-and-sniff home tests
Its technology and network address challenges facing clinical trials, which include engaging large and inclusive patient cohorts as well as empowering over-stretched healthcare professionals to contribute to important research

LONDON, 20 September 2023: uMed, the health and research technology company, today announced The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) has selected its service to support the global expansion of its wide-scale study exploring the link between loss of smell and brain disease.

The smell test study, which is part of MJFF’s landmark brain health initiative, the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), will utilise uMed’s network of more than 500 primary care provider groups in the UK to engage eligible participants. uMed will facilitate the distribution of 15,000 University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Tests (UPSIT), a scientifically validated scratch-and-sniff test of smell ability, to individuals aged 60 and older in the UK without Parkinson’s.

Current research into Parkinson’s indicates that 100% of major brain disorders are associated with smell loss and 96% of newly diagnosed Parkinson’s patients have lost some of this sense. In addition, the condition can precede diagnosis by years or even decades.

However, the challenge — as with many research studies — is in engaging large patient cohorts that represent a diverse population. While large academic centres and research sites are set up to support research, many struggle to enrol and retain large numbers of patients. Reuse of limited, local clinical populations can also affect the generalisability of findings to the wider population.

Across all research, 85% of clinical trials face delays and 30% never get off the ground due to a lack of volunteers. By leveraging technologies such as uMed, it’s possible to rapidly and efficiently reach more participants and enable the delivery of larger, more ambitious trials than ever before.

By partnering with uMed, The Michael J. Fox Foundation can access hundreds of primary care providers whose involvement in clinical studies is critical for the advancements in research. Without uMed, these non-traditional research sites often lack the financial and human capital or the technical tools required to regularly engage their patients while balancing care.

uMed will send an SMS invite to potential participants, aged over 60 and without a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, on behalf of the patient’s recognised care provider before taking them to a screening portal. The free and simple scratch-and-sniff tests will then be delivered to consenting participants who will upload their results online. Eligible volunteers will be contacted by a nurse and referred to a clinic site for additional follow-up. Volunteers who join PPMI at a site share critical information through clinical assessments, imaging scans and biological samples over at least five years.

“Advances toward better treatments and cures for Parkinson’s disease require partnership with a diverse, broad base of study participants,” says Maggie Kuhl, MJFF Vice President of Research Engagement. “More simple and efficient tools that can deliver participation opportunities will help us overcome barriers to engagement and connect with more potential volunteers. uMed’s network and service is a valuable tool in helping our PPMI study drive faster recruitment of representative populations, speeding breakthroughs for all.”

The study, which has started enrollment in the UK, has already seen increased engagement of potential volunteers wanting more information and consenting to receive smell tests at home. To date, a third of patients who have been sent an SMS invitation to the study are clicking through to the study website to find out more information. In addition, 11% have consented to receive a smell test kit at home.

Dr Matt Wilson, uMed’s founder and CEO, comments: “We are proud to play our part in accelerating significant advancements in Parkinson’s research. Our technology will help The Michael J. Fox Foundation to reach its goals of driving more than 100,000 UPSIT completions globally. Engaging with a patient cohort of this size is critical if we are to enhance our understanding of this progressive disease and develop advanced therapies to improve patient outcomes.”

Wilson adds, “That being said, we know how hard it is to get impactful research off the ground. Our technical infrastructure and consumer-based marketing techniques enable researchers to develop, manage and engage large-scale patient cohorts in research programs. What’s more, we are democratising access to research for non-traditional research sites and their patients who might otherwise lack the technical infrastructure and staff capacity required to engage tens of thousands of patients across multiple studies. The result is that many patients contacted by uMed have never been invited to participate in research before. In a separate Parkinson’s study supported by uMed, more than 80% of patients reported they had never been asked to participate in research before.”

The partnership between uMed and The Michael J. Fox Foundation follows uMed’s experience in successfully delivering other Parkinson’s studies including the Predict-PD study run by Queen Mary University of London (also a PPMI clinical site). uMed increased monthly patient enrolment by 275%, as well as successfully recruiting a large population of patients from ethnic minorities. It is also running an ongoing observational study AccessPD, a next-generation patient registry which is supporting the development of better treatments for patients with Parkinson’s.

– ENDS –

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Our Future Health partners with uMed

Our Future Health partners with uMed to facilitate recruitment of volunteers across the South of the UK

uMed is delighted to announce it is now engaging volunteers for Our Future Health, the UK’s largest health research programme, designed to enable the discovery and testing of more effective approaches to prevention, earlier detection and treatment of diseases. uMed is automating the distribution of SMS invitations via its vast network of GP partners, to support the recruitment of volunteers from across the South of the UK.

Our Future Health is inviting millions of people from all backgrounds to take part and provide information about their health and lifestyles, to create an incredibly detailed picture that represents the whole of the UK. This will provide a world-leading resource for academic and commercial researchers to undertake discovery research on early indicators of disease.

uMed is a health technology company that partners with GP practices to connect patients with medical research studies relevant to their individual health circumstances. The uMed Recruit platform is used by practices across the UK to engage their patients for clinical studies, registries and population health initiatives at scale. uMed’s technology takes on the workload of identifying, screening and engaging patients, so that the GP practice can offer its patients highly relevant research opportunities whilst continuing to focus on patient care.

On behalf of the GPs in their provider network, uMed is facilitating automated outreach via SMS to eligible, consented patients across Poole, Bournemouth, Portsmouth and Southampton, inviting them to take part in Our Future Health.

Volunteers that consent to participate in the programme will be asked to fill in a questionnaire about their health and lifestyle, as well as provide a small sample of blood and physical measurements. Volunteers will also be asked for their consent to use information in their health records alongside the samples and data provided, to build a comprehensive picture of their health.

Our Future Health aims to collect and link these multiple sources of health and health-relevant information across a cohort of 5 million people. Through their rapidly expanding network of GP partners, uMed will be providing over 150,000 patients across the South of the UK with the opportunity to participate in the programme.

“At uMed our ultimate goal is to improve access to research and healthcare to transform lives on a global scale, so we are proud to support such a wide reaching research programme that’s impacting the way we detect and prevent disease. Working with our GP partners, we can reach groups within the population that might otherwise miss out on the opportunity to participate in health programmes like this. This has the potential to make a significant impact on the outcomes of the research; supporting the delivery of better health outcomes for all”

Comment from Dr. Matt Wilson, CEO at uMed.

A key focus of Our Future Health is to build a resource that truly reflects the UK population, ensuring representation from all backgrounds. Past health research programmes have lacked representation of some groups, including people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, as well as those with lower incomes. Prioritising diversity within the programme will support the discovery of treatments that benefit everyone. uMed’s partnership with GP practices enables access to a wide patient population that is inclusive of all backgrounds.

To find out more visit the Our Future Health website: www.ourfuturehealth.org.uk. If you are a GP, Practice Manager, or part of a practice research team, based in the South of the UK and would like to offer your patients the opportunity to take part in Our Future Health, contact us at practicesupport@umed.io.

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uMed raises £9.8m to boost participation in clinical trials, expanding to N.America

Late-stage industry clinical research in the UK fell by 41% between 2017 and 2021, which is putting future patient care at risk
The healthtech’s latest round of funding will directly combat this problem by accelerating research and care support for targeted patient groups through its landmark cohort programmes
The successful raise will also be used to expand uMed’s presence in North America, increasing the company’s global patient access to over 10 million people by the end of 2023

LONDON, 5th July 2023: uMed, the health and research technology company, has raised £9.8 million in its latest venture capital funding round, which it will use to boost participation in clinical trials. The raise is backed by Delin Ventures, AlbionVC, Playfair Capital and Silicon Valley’s 11.2 Capital.

The UK is facing a collapse in industry clinical trials. Patient access to industry clinical trials has dropped by 44% between 2017/18 and 2021/22, and the number of trials initiated in the UK – including cancer trials – plummeted by 41% in a similar time frame. This is raising alarm about the future of clinical research in the UK and the resulting impact on patient care. uMed directly tackles this issue by enabling healthcare providers in the UK, US and Canada to more easily participate in clinical research and care improvement activity without additional cost or burden to staff. The uMed platform rapidly finds and engages suitable patients, and collects prospective data to answer key clinical questions, while also enabling GPs to generate additional revenue for their practice. This is in line with last month’s review by Lord O’Shaughnessy which urged the Government to provide financial incentives to GPs to help boost commercial clinical trials.

The latest funding round will extend the reach of uMed’s landmark cohort programme in Parkinson’s Disease, Access-PD, to several thousand patients globally by the end of the year. Access-PD, which already has over 350 participating patients in the UK via more than 130 GPs, is the first true population-scale research platform and closes the fundamental gap between the clinical data needs of researchers and their ability to access that data. This is achieved by creating consented cohorts that integrate near real-time Electronic Health Record (EHR) data with prospective data and biosamples captured from the patient at home. Additionally, uMed will be launching a Cardio-Metabolic Cohort and Lung Disease Cohort. It will initially focus on interstitial lung diseases like pulmonary fibrosis which is being developed with US research charity the Three Lakes Foundation.

uMed’s founder and CEO, Dr Matt Wilson comments: “We developed the uMed platform to help healthcare professionals more easily and efficiently run patient research and targeted care programmes at scale, improving outcomes for patients by mitigating care gaps and accelerating research. Our groundbreaking patient cohorts give researchers access to unique data and insights, accelerating development and access to new therapies, while dramatically reducing the cost of finding, engaging and collecting prospective data from patients.”

Dr Elango Vijakumar, National Research Lead at Modality Partnership, a provider of primary health care and community services across the UK, adds: “Clinical research is vital for innovation and to enhance the standard of patient care within the NHS. At the Modality Partnership, we are committed to actively supporting research. We’ve been working alongside uMed since 2019 to provide our patients with the opportunity to participate in multiple research programmes. Its management of patient identification and communication on our behalf allows us to be involved in cutting-edge research without compromising our focus on patient care. Without the platform to take on the admin and workload, there simply wouldn’t be the capacity to take part.”

The North America expansion builds on uMed’s UK successes – since its seed round in November 2020, uMed has signed up more than 450 UK GPs representing five million patients, and has successfully recruited over 6,000 patients to clinical studies. The entry into the US market will be spearheaded by a partnership deal with digital healthcare company Innovaccer, opening up access to over seven million patients across the country. This follows uMed’s inaugural Canadian partnership with clinician-led healthtech MCI Onehealth. These moves will be closely followed by a pipeline of deals that include direct health systems access and additional channel partners which will give uMed access to over 10 million patients by the end of 2023.

Since its 2020 seed round, uMed’s technology has enabled a number of successful nationwide studies to take place across the UK, including a prospective precision medicine clinical trial for patients with high hypertension and a nationwide study into identifying risk of Parkinson’s Disease.

Molly Gilmartin, Investor at AlbionVC, said: “At AlbionVC we are thrilled to continue partnering with Matt Wilson and his team to enable longitudinal research which has historically taken decades and cost millions of pounds. uMed’s technology is uniquely positioned to truly revolutionise how clinical research is conducted globally. The latest round of funding will continue to support the company’s US expansion and will further accelerate the next phase of growth on a path to global category leadership.”
Rosie Barnett, Principal at Delin Ventures, commented: “Delin Ventures is delighted to continue supporting uMed’s team in executing our shared vision, deploying digital health technology to revolutionise the future of trials and medical insight generation on a global scale – focusing now on the US. The traditional clinical research model is slow and expensive. uMed provides a unique platform to engage patients at scale in a highly targeted and cost-effective manner.”

Patient Story: Kevin Quinn

In 2022, Kevin Quinn from Liverpool joined a uMed supported study of patients with chronic respiratory conditions. The study evaluated the effectiveness of a respiratory monitor that measures CO2 levels in tidal breathing of participants. The aim of the research was to help advance the development of point-of-care diagnostic technologies that monitor and manage cardiorespiratory conditions, which have the potential to transform the way we diagnose and treat patients.

We caught up with Kevin upon completion of the study to find out more about his reasons for taking part and to hear about his experiences of participating in this research with uMed. Find out what he had to say…

Why did you choose to join this study?

I had been suffering from a lung condition for some time, so when I received the message about this study from my GP, I was keen to get involved and support any research that had the potential to improve knowledge and understanding of respiratory conditions, and that might bring some relief to others in the future.

How would you describe your experience of taking part in this study?

The whole process went smoothly, uMed handled everything so I was able to participate entirely from home and didn’t have to travel!

I was called by uMed’s Lead Research Nurse, Hannah, who was extremely helpful and professional in talking me through the study and ensuring I was happy to proceed.

I then received a study questionnaire and the respiratory device via post, and the uMed team walked me through how to use the device and how to record my daily symptoms. They also arranged for return of the devices once the study had finished.

I only have praise for the uMed team, their support was 10 out of 10! In particular Hannah was extremely helpful, friendly and professional, and was available to answer any questions I had about the study. This made me, and my wife, feel completely at ease with taking part.

What message do you have for others about participating in research?

Participating in research is so important. As individuals we own all this important information about our health that if shared could have a great impact on the lives of others in the future. How else can new treatments be developed if we don’t share this information?

Want to find out more about this study?

Find out how uMed supported the successful enrolment of 740 patients in to this study, whilst also handling device distribution, device training, and the collection and aggregation of key data to demonstrate efficacy of the device. Read the full case study here.

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MCI Onehealth Partners with uMed to Accelerate Clinical Research

Partnership introduces unique patient recruitment and engagement platform to Canada

TORONTO, March 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — MCI Onehealth Technologies Inc. (“MCI”) (TSX: DRDR), a clinician-led healthcare technology company focused on increasing access to and quality of healthcare, and uMed, the UK-based provider of a leading automated patient-recruitment platform, are pleased to announce a partnership that will increase patient access to international research studies and accelerate enrollment and improve retention in clinical trials. MCI is uMed’s first Canadian partner.

“MCI’s collaboration with uMed will open a new subset of research that emphasizes real-world evidence and patient-reported information. MCI firmly believes that patient-facing technology is a core component for increasing access to healthcare and for making care more personalized,” said Dr. Alexander Dobranowski, founder and CEO of MCI. “MCI is already uniquely positioned in that we use technology to screen clinical data efficiently and compliantly to flag patients as potential participants for research trials. Once potential participants are flagged from among our more than three million patient records, uMed provides a highly efficient and incredibly fast method for contacting, enrolling, and ongoingly engaging these MCI patients, for any current clinical trial and for future relevant trials. This collaboration creates another innovative avenue by which MCI’s clinical insights as a service program can help optimize patient care, provide access to meaningful clinical trial opportunities and bring value to life sciences stakeholders and health systems.”

uMed connects healthcare professionals and their patients with ground-breaking research opportunities. Their digital patient recruitment platform enables healthcare professionals to participate in more research with minimal additional workload, providing their patients with better access to studies that are highly relevant to their specific condition.

uMed’s ability to capture patient-reported outcomes and real-world evidence is in demand for advancing clinical insights and fosters patient-empowerment. Their platform and approach are fully compliant with all relevant requirements for consent, privacy, data security and research ethics for clinical research, additionally allowing for opportunities to more easily and compliantly re-engage patients for follow-up or related trials.

“We’re thrilled to partner with innovators like MCI for our entry into Canada. Our two companies are aligned in the vision of how access to research can help optimize health for specific patients and more broadly across populations. Faster and more customizable cohorts in interventional and non-interventional clinical trials lead to better care options sooner, and more cost efficiently,” said Dr. Matt Wilson, CEO of uMed. “In MCI we see a partner that not only shares uMed’s driven commitment to supporting effective, efficient clinical research, but also a company with the existing clinical data lake to immediately utilize the uMed platform for significant outcomes.”

In keeping with its objective to be a preeminent health technology leader, MCI nurtures international opportunities to leverage its vast pool of high-quality structured clinical information. MCI’s audience for clinical insights continues to grow in Canada and the US and will further benefit from collaboration with international leader uMed.

About MCI:
MCI is a healthcare technology company focused on empowering patients and doctors with advanced technologies to increase access, improve quality, and reduce healthcare costs. As part of the healthcare community for over 30 years, MCI operates one of Canada’s leading primary care networks with approximately 280 physicians and specialists, serves more than one million patients annually and had nearly 300,000 telehealth visits last year, including online visits via mciconnect.ca. MCI additionally offers an expanding suite of occupational health service offerings that support a growing list of nearly 600 corporate customers. MCI provides data insights as a service in six categories: rare disease; complex major medical/chronic; patient cohort building; clinical trial recruitment; synthetic health data and bespoke insights. Led by a proven management team of doctors and experienced executives, MCI remains focused on executing a strategy centered around acquiring technology and health services that complement the company’s current roadmap. For more information, visit mcionehealth.com

About uMed
uMed is a healthcare technology company dedicated to accelerating clinical trials by making participation in research more accessible for healthcare professionals and their patients. The uMed platform takes on the workload of recruiting patients for clinical studies by automating the process of identification, screening, and engagement, all on behalf of the patient’s recognized provider. The technology seamlessly links clinical data from consented patients to ePROs, device data, and biosamples to rapidly create study-specific datasets and registries. This enables healthcare professionals to participate in more revenue-generating research with minimal additional workload, and provides patients with better access to life changing studies. uMed is embedded across a global network of providers that represent over 10 million lives across the UK, US, Canada and Australia. For more information, visit https://www.umed.io/

For media enquiries please contact:
Nolan Reeds | MCI Onehealth | nolan@mcionehealth.com
Lucy White | uMed | lucy.white@umed.io

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First of its kind patient cohort program announced at IPF-Summit

NEW YORK, August 29, 2022 — A first-of-its-kind patient cohort platform will soon be available to UK and US researchers struggling to recruit patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD), such as pulmonary fibrosis and progressing fibrosis resulting from COVID-19. UK-based company uMed announced the launch of the Access-ILD/PF Cohort at the sixth annual Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) Summit in Boston.

uMed has built a technology that can rapidly identify, directly engage and quickly recruit patient populations at a significantly faster rate for participation in both clinical and real-world studies.

“Research in the life sciences industry is often a long process, especially in the rare disease space, where it can take several years to complete,” said Matt Wilson, MD, founder and president of uMed. “Our pioneering platform is designed to solve the challenges that researchers and patients are facing — delays in new therapies.”

According to Dr. Wilson, the uMed platform connects electronic medical records (EMR) with hospitalization data, patient-reported outcomes, medical device data and even DNA sampling to identify cohorts of patients eligible to participate in various studies. These include clinical trials and prospective observational research. It is the only platform capable of synergistically linking these multiple health data points.

“Right now, there are more than 200 clinical trials in various stages for ILD and PF/IPF,” noted Dr. Wilson. “With such a deep pipeline and more trials on the horizon, there is a significant demand for patient participation. This platform builds on the work we successfully initiated in the UK, with a goal of creating a global cohort to support multiple studies.”

“The tremendous progress we are seeing in how pulmonary fibrosis develops has resulted in several effective therapies,” added Fernando Martinez, MD, executive vice chair of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “While there are many active studies to come, a major limitation is identifying patients who would consider participating in a clinical trial. uMed offers a very promising approach that could revolutionize the rapid completion of key clinical studies for patients.”

Another unique aspect of the uMed platform is the inherent trust that the company has built with physicians, enabling them to strike a strategic partnership, engage with their patients and seek consent. Currently, the uMed network covers more than five million patients across the US and UK and will soon expand into Australia. The platform is HIPAA- and GDPR-compliant.

For more information about uMed’s unique platform or to see a demonstration, contact James Dunstan, VP Commercial at james.dunstan@umed.io, +44 (0) 7488 812 678.

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Finding the Right Patients for Primary Care Clinical Studies

An article published in the Journal of Clinical Studies describing the benefits of uMed in clinical trial recruitment.

Read the article here.

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Automated recruitment platform accelerates patients into clinical studies

An automated patient recruitment platform (ARP) could help researchers recruit patients significantly faster into clinical studies across diverse disease areas, helping researchers identify new treatments for diseases more quickly, tech platform creator uMed says.

Read the article here.

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