AiCure and The IMA Group Partner to Optimize Clinical Trial Recruitment and Patient Engagement

NEW YORK, March 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — AiCure, an AI and data analytics company focused on improving clinical trials, and IMA, a national leader in providing clinical evaluation and research services, today announced a partnership to gain a widespread understanding of patient behavior and drug compliance outside of a clinical trial setting. With a database of over 300,000 potential subjects, IMA will roll out AiCure’s patient engagement solution, Patient Connect, to study participants, offering patients convenient and enhanced support to successfully manage their existing treatment at home. This data will ultimately give sponsors access to a diverse pool of patients with known adherence patterns across therapeutic areas that could be recruited for upcoming trials, improving the likelihood of a trial’s success and collection of high-quality data.

Recruiting and retaining patients remains one of the biggest challenges for clinical trials, with approximately 85% failing to recruit enough patients, and 80% facing delays due to recruitment problems^¹. Further, lack of compliance often leads to failure of clinical trials evaluating medicines known to be effective. The IMA Group’s nationwide network helps provide a rich database of potential clinical trial subjects, with over 90 brick-and-mortar site locations across the country supporting over 125 distinct therapeutic areas. By partnering with AiCure, The IMA Group will begin measuring patient engagement and compliance to medications outside of a study setting, deepening the value of its pool of high-quality participants for future trials. The one-year partnership will evaluate compliance to treatment across a wide array of conditions, from pain, to cardiovascular conditions, CNS diseases, diabetes, and more, while offering patients real-time support to help them manage their health.

“The success of a clinical trial depends on the quality of its data – which often comes down to how likely a patient is to comply with treatment protocols. Understanding that risk and how a patient manages their health in a non-trial setting before recruiting them can make a critical difference in a trial setting,” said Dr. Ed Ikeguchi, CEO of AiCure. “Our partnership with IMA aims to paint that picture and giving sponsors data-driven insights to guide recruitment, study design, and intervention tactics. It also helps provide immediate support to patients with a wide-range of conditions who may be struggling with staying on track, and helps clinicians understand the reasoning behind that struggle.”

Partnership Benefits for Both Patients and Clinical Sites

As part of a 30-day program, participating patients will use AiCure’s solution via their smartphone each time they dose, which uses computer vision and AI to confirm adherent dosing behavior in a HIPAA compliant manner. Patient Connect can also aggregate ePRO and digital biomarker data to detect subtle changes in a patient’s condition. Additionally, patients will gain access to communication tools to connect directly to a clinician for further support.

Beyond improving recruitment, the data collected as part of this partnership can be fed into AiCure’s predictive analytics engine, allowing future sponsors to gain valuable insights on dosing behavior across a wide range of disease states to inform personalized intervention tactics. By developing sets of quality patient behavior data, sponsors and sites can determine how best to support patients from afar, while maintaining visibility into their overall wellbeing and how they’re responding to treatment.

“Spanning multiple demographics, disease states and geographies, our patient population is uniquely positioned for participation in clinical trials that rely on diverse enrollment,” said Dr. Mark Weinberger, President of The IMA Group. “By giving our patients tools like AiCure Patient Connect, we not only support them in their treatment plan, but we help sponsors achieve a deeper understanding of which patients are best suited for a specific trial, thus expediting recruitment timelines.”

About AiCure
AiCure is an AI and advanced data analytics company that monitors patient behavior and enables remote patient engagement in clinical trials. AiCure improves predictability of study timelines, reduces costs and accelerates timelines through remote patient engagement and assessments, including measuring digital biomarkers and real-time monitoring of patient dosing. Founded in 2010 and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and leading institutional investors, AiCure has more than 65 issued patents and works with global clients in over 30 countries. AiCure is globally recognized and is a recipient of the Scrip Award, AI 100 and Digital Health 150. For more information, please visit www.aicure.com.

About The IMA Group
For over 30 years, The IMA Group, headquartered in Tarrytown, New York and with offices nationwide, has been dedicated to helping people get back to work and resume productivity. Over the past 10 years, IMA has conducted more than three million evaluations nationwide, utilizing thousands of providers based both at IMA’s 90+ offices, as well as independent locations. We provide Government Services clients with medical, psychological and related evaluations, as well as ancillary services. Payer Services supports Commercial Insurers, TPAs and Corporate clients with Independent Medical Evaluations, and Occupational Health Services, Fitness for Duty determinations, Pre-Employment examinations and Forensic Drug Testing. The Clinical Research Division offers access to new advances in pharmacology and biotechnology for research subjects, as well as a robust database of interested participants for pharmaceutical sponsors. For more information visit http://www.theIMAgroup.com or www.imaresearch.com.

¹https://www.biopharmadive.com/spons/decentralized-clinical-trials-are-we-ready-to-make-the-leap/546591/