Parexel and Signify Health have announced a strategic collaboration to provide customers with new solutions to enable access to a more diverse and traditionally underrepresented population for their clinical trials. The partnership will focus on improving patient access to clinical trials, bringing studies to patients in their own homes, and identifying relevant social determinants of health (SDoH) to facilitate connections among local resources, patients, and caregivers.

“Simply saying clinical trial diversity is ‘important’ is not enough,” said Peyton Howell, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial & Strategy Officer, Parexel. “To correct the disparities in healthcare and drive more inclusion in clinical trials, we first must achieve a more holistic understanding of the non-medical factors that influence patient lives. Signify Health’s analytics and technology platform will enable us to use these insights to better understand the social and societal factors impacting inclusion — a key requirement to ensuring diversity in clinical trials.”

“Through our mobile, national network of providers, we already have activated the home as an alternative site for baseline patient assessments and first dose observation for specialty drugs,” said Kyle Armbrester, CEO, Signify Health. “Alongside this clinical support, we are identifying and addressing the social co-morbidities that impact a person’s ability to access the care they need. It is particularly exciting to be working with Parexel on ways to leverage these capabilities to support both patients, and their caregivers, who want to participate in clinical trial programmes for potentially life-changing therapies.”

Over the coming months, the companies will explore opportunities to address social determinants of health issues as part of the clinical trials recruitment and management.