Pharmaceutical services company i3 has entered into an agreement with Acurian, a provider of patient recruitment and retention solutions, to provide study sponsors with a more robust solution to recruit investigators for clinical trials. 

Acurian’s patient database will be complemented by new i3 services that offer statistics for improved planning and identification of trial sites with greater access to appropriate patient populations.

With its proprietary access to a large database of information relating to private insurance claims, i3 can identify potential investigators throughout the United States and rank them according to the number of patients available who match the required study-specific criteria.

The effectiveness of this informatics capability was confirmed in a study that i3 published earlier this year that demonstrated that the top-ranking investigators enroll patients twice as fast. 

With 70% of all clinical trials missing their timelines, according to an industry survey, the application of i3’s clinical informatics can make an appreciable difference in meeting customers’ enrollment goals. Patients visit Acurian.com and affiliated sources to sign up voluntarily for information about upcoming clinical trials of interest. 

This direct-to-patient approach has netted Acurian a database of more 50 million patients who have self-reported a wide variety of ailments and want to receive healthcare information, including clinical trial opportunities in their local area.

“Pairing i3's clinical informatics solutions with Acurian’s patient assets will offer a unique product to the marketplace and articularly benefit sponsors of studies anticipating or experiencing enrollment issues,” said Tom Abbott, president of i3 Pharma Informatics. “It also represents an additional opportunity to increase i3’s brand penetration among pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device sponsors.”

Bill Gwinn, vice president of Clinical Informatics at i3 Pharma Informatics, added, “This agreement will further cement our reputation as a clinical research organization on which sponsors rely to execute difficult trials. 78,000 investigators in i3’s U.S. database, combined with more than 50 million patients in Acurian’s database, will yield a comprehensive view of sites, investigators, and patients to help our customers achieve their enrollment targets.”