Google's sister company Verily has been making waves in healthcare. It's latest is forming a strategic alliance with pharmaceutical companies to enter the clinical trials space, according to CNBC.
Verily announced the partnership with four big pharma companies, Novartis, Sanofi, Otsuka and Pfizer, on May 21. The goal of the partnership is to reach more patients while also making it easier for patients to enroll in appropriate clinical trials.
With the pharma companies, Verily will aggregate the data through EHRs and health-tracking wearable devices. Historically, clinical trials have been expensive and rely on outdated technology. However, pharma companies are turning now to technology companies to find innovative ways to target patients.
Entering the clinical trial space is optimistic for Verily, according to CNBC. Badhri Srinivasan, head of global development operations at Novartis, gave the example of reaching a patient who was searching on Google for asthma symptom relief. Verily could deliver an ad to the patient to suggest he or she enroll in a specific clinical trial related to asthma.
On May 13, Verily launched the Baseline Health System Consortium in collaboration with six U.S. health systems. This was another way for the company to make clinical research more accessible for patients, clinicians and researchers.