CRO inVentiv Health is partnering with online patient network PatientsLikeMe, which has 200,000 members who share information and experiences on more than 1,500 different diseases and conditions, to bring people more quickly into medical research and clinical trials.  

"inVentiv Health will be able to quickly recruit potential trial participants by tapping into one of the fastest growing and most active patient networks online, so that our customers can speed up the development of drugs, devices and treatments to improve patients' lives," said Raymond Hill, president of inVentiv Health.

"We've pioneered a way for people to learn from, share and contribute health data, and removed traditional barriers between researchers and patients," said Michael Evers, executive vice president of marketing and patient advocacy at PatientsLikeMe.

This agreement is inVentiv's third recent partnership focused on accelerating clinical trials. In March, it took an equity stake in Mytrus, which has been expanding the boundaries of traditional clinical trial research with technology that allows sponsors to use electronic informed consent.  In early June, it announced a partnership with Medikly to gather data, enabling faster recruitment of clinical trial investigators.