At the 2022 SCOPE Conference, industry leaders came together in Orlando to showcase the latest innovations in clinical trials. Inato’s Liz Beatty spoke alongside Sanofi’s Kim Hawkins to present how their teams worked together to accelerate trials, diversify and broaden patient populations, and increase trial access for underrepresented demographics.
As a result of the ongoing pandemic, Sanofi was facing delays in their trial timelines, fewer patients participating in trials, and the rising need to enroll patients quickly as more trials were taking off. Within their portfolio, an increasingly challenging disease area was multiple sclerosis. Sanofi had several MS trials running at the same time, including subtypes of MS that were much more difficult to recruit patients for. The trials were posted to Inato’s platform, giving sites the opportunity to self-identify which trials worked best with their patient population and availability. “The sites really had a choice in what they were participating in,” explained Hawkins.
The working relationship between Inato and the sites enabled Sanofi to have a comprehensive view of each sites’ capabilities, ultimately allowing for some sites to successfully participate in multiple MS trials. For the populations that are typically harder to recruit from, Inato worked closely with community sites to identify those that had access to qualifying patients. The extensive process of pre-identifying patients that met the trials’ criteria allowed for one community-based center from Inato’s network to achieve the US FPI in the RMS Phase II trial. Additionally, over 70 patients were identified for the RMS trials alone, with one site screening two patients within the first week of activation for the Phase III trial.
With Inato’s approach bridging the gap between sites and sponsors, Sanofi has successfully launched eight studies since Q4 of 2020 across a number of disease areas and nine total countries. Using Inato’s Verified Commitment, Sanofi’s team was able to ensure the trials will meet enrollment goals before they’ve even begun screening. Hawkins stated, “We now have verified patient commitments from almost 250 patients across these eight trials, which is really significant.”
Additionally, Sanofi has incorporated Inato’s inclusive research program into their Asthma and COPD studies, “This is really allowing Sanofi to target sites with access to exact patient populations we need for these studies, allowing us to have better predictability around our diversity targets,” said Hawkins. The collaboration between Sanofi and Inato was a productive one, Hawkins remarked, and ultimately removed barriers on both the sponsor and site side of the trials.
The early findings for this collaboration are encouraging for the future of clinical trials. Inato looks forward to being a part of continued innovative solutions to make trials accessible, efficient, and inclusive.