Healint Starts Third Virtual Clinical Trial Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Healint, a leading provider of healthcare technology and developer of the Migraine Buddy tracking app, is now recruiting patients for its third virtual global clinical trial in the past two years. With COVID-19 reducing the ability of patients to visit medical facilities and clinical trial sites in person and after the successful completion of its first two virtual trials with the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical leaders, Healint is utilizing its industry leading virtual clinical trial capabilities to recruit patients to participate in a new trial for ePRO measures for an acute migraine medication. 

The global pandemic has halted 80 percent of non-COVID-19 clinical trials and prevented many new drug trials from beginning. Yet even before COVID-19, clinical trials were plagued by a number of inefficiencies; time-consuming, disorganized patient recruitment, cumbersome paper data collection, and an over-reliance on patients to both physically go to a trial site and keep meticulous, hand-written diaries, all of which contributed to clinical trials being unnecessarily long and costly. 

"Given the essential role that clinical trials play in new drug development, pharmaceutical companies are looking for innovative new ways to conduct their studies, especially given the constraints they now face because of COVID-19," said Francois Cadiou, CEO of Healint. "The data that can be captured by mobile health tracking apps will transform every aspect of healthcare, from the doctor-patient relationship to new drug development. A virtual, direct-to-patient trial will drastically reduce costs and provide pharmaceutical companies with access to more diverse patient cohorts who can report data from anywhere around the world. Using mHealth technology can help us complete trials more efficiently and allow drug developers to bring new therapies to market in a faster and more cost-effective manner."

Healint's virtual trial technology provides drug developers with a massive, engaged patient base via Healint's Migraine Buddy mobile migraine tracking app, which boasts over 2.5 million users worldwide. These user profiles can be used to create customized, bespoke cohorts of patients who experience specific symptoms or migraine triggers that can be easily fine-tuned to suit a specific trial. Moving clinical trials to a virtual setting also eliminates the need for in-person patient or nurse visits, cumbersome paper records, and armies of clinical research associates to monitor the accuracy of patient data. 

By partnering with Healint for a virtual trial, drug developers are able to quickly identify patients, collect vast amounts of active and passive participant data via a mobile health app patients are already using, and send that data directly from the patient to the study coordinator efficiently and securely, eliminating the time and human error associated with paper data collection and entry.

Recruitment for Healint's third virtual trial will conclude by the third quarter of 2021, and the trial is expected to last for eight to twelve months. 

Healint is a leading maker of healthcare technology used all over the world for chronic pain management. Healint leverages innovative techniques in software, data science and user experience design to empower people to manage their chronic conditions and diseases. Healint's first global program - the Migraine Buddy platform and its apps - helps a thriving community of users manage and track their migraines.

Source: Healint