inVentiv Health, based in Burlington, Mass., has taken an equity stake in Mytrus, a pioneer in virtual clinical trials and technologies including electronic informed consent to improve trial efficiency.

Mytrus has been expanding the boundaries of traditional clinical research with the first all-electronic, home-based clinical trial to gain FDA and IRB approval.  inVentiv Health, formerly known as PharmaNet/i3, is taking a significant equity stake in Mytrus, as well as establishing a strategic commercial relationship.

"This partnership blends our shared drive for innovation and our complementary experience from the world of high tech and clinical research," said Paul Meister, CEO of inVentiv Health.  "The goal is improved trial execution, accelerated time to market and reduced product development costs for our clients."

Mytrus technology allows sponsors to use electronic informed consent, a significant improvement in efficiency and speed.  It allows a wider range of people to participate in clinical research by removing location as an obstacle to recruitment and bringing trials directly to participants in their homes.  Taken together, Mytrus technology enables more cost-effective clinical studies that start and finish faster. At a time when bringing a drug to market can cost up to $1 billion, Mytrus, founded in 2009, provides solutions for pharmaceutical and device makers eager to find more cost effective ways to conduct research.

"We estimate that up to 30% of studies run today could be done direct-to-patient and 100% of studies and study patients could benefit from electronic informed consent," said Anthony Costello, co-founder and CEO of California-based Mytrus. "inVentiv Health has the global footprint and clinical research expertise to help us bring the benefits of our technology more quickly to trial sponsors and patients worldwide."

Patients who match the eligibility criteria for a study can live anywhere and submit their data remotely, allowing sponsors to conduct more cost-effective recruitment campaigns and making  participation more convenient for patients and investigators.  Sponsors are able to reduce the number of study sites required to run a clinical trial by as much as 80%, which dramatically increases savings in time and costs throughout the trial, especially during study startup.