PHARMACY MARKET
Business Wire | September 28, 2023
Cytel Inc., provider of quantitative insights and health data analytics to leaders in the life sciences, has acquired the Berlin-based company co.faktor GmbH with its dedicated healthcare consultancy services co.value® (market access), co.medical® (medical communications), and co.patient® (patient relations) concentrations. As a result, Cytel’s services for biopharma commercialization will gain new and complementary specialist consultancy capabilities and localized expertise for successful market access in Germany, a first wave launch country. The acquisition marks another milestone in Cytel’s strategic growth in Europe, and follows the recent acquisition of stève consultants, specialists in market access, real-world evidence (RWE), and health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) in France. Cytel now boasts a 200-person-strong access consultancy team, making it one of the only providers that offers the full fleet of advisory services, from clinical trial and real-world data and evidence analytics to global market access and local in-country Health Technology Assessment (HTA) support.
Cytel is now primed to provide global drug sponsors and their affiliate teams with advanced analytical support across the lifecycle through commercialization. Achieving favorable market access in today’s global healthcare industry is challenging and requires deep knowledge of EU national regulations. Cytel has long excelled at using proven quantitative techniques to help pharmaceutical manufacturers successfully enter new markets. To continue supporting global and local clients on their road to commercial success, Cytel has invested heavily in specialized, national capabilities in key launch markets with the recent acquisitions of stève consultants in June 2023 and SDS Life Sciences in 2022. Cytel’s most recent acquisition of the co.faktor businesses continues this investment, augmenting and extending localized regulatory support through product launch and commercialization.
“The co.faktor team is recognized as a highly specialized biopharma services provider, with a broad spectrum of services including HTA, pricing, medical communication, patient relations, and strategic consultancy in Germany. It’s no surprise they’ve shaped the field there,” said Radek Wasiak, General Manager, Real-World & Advanced Analytics at Cytel. “We look forward to welcoming them to Cytel, where they will now be supported by the full depth and breadth of our unparalleled biometrics, RWE, HEOR, and market access advisory talent.”
“Cytel and co.faktor have clear synergies, particularly when it comes to Cytel’s data know-how and co.faktor’s understanding of Germany’s uniquely complex market access and HTA requirements,” said Dr. Marc Esser, CEO, co.faktor. “By combining our deep expertise in the German HTA process with Cytel’s unique capabilities, we will be able to help our clients survive the upcoming European Health Technology Assessment (EU-HTA), a key challenge for all stakeholders in the European pharma market.”
About Cytel
Cytel is the largest provider of statistical software and advanced analytics for clinical trial design and execution. For over thirty-five years, Cytel’s scientific rigor and operational excellence have enabled biotech and pharmaceutical companies to navigate uncertainty, prove value and make confident, evidence-based decisions. Its experts deliver industry-leading software, data-driven analytics, real-world evidence, and strategic consulting. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Cytel has more than 1,900 resources across North America, Europe, and Asia.
About co.faktor
For more than ten years, Berlin-based co.faktor GmbH has been providing specialized consulting services with its dedicated healthcare consultancy services co.value® (market access), co.medical® (medical communications), and co.patient® (patient relations) concentrations. By synergistically combining the expertise in these areas, co.faktor offers efficient launch support with consistent messaging to all relevant stakeholders.
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PHARMACY MARKET
PR Newswire | September 21, 2023
Biofourmis, a leading global technology-enabled care delivery company, announced today the release of its expanded Digital Clinical Trials solution within the Biofourmis platform for biopharma and other life sciences companies. The solution offers robust digital tools and resources for trial sponsors and investigators aimed at accelerating drug development and improving access and diversity while also reducing costs.
Biofourmis' Digital Clinical Trials solution includes a technology-enabled, scalable platform and services that support digital tools enablement, trial decentralization, safety monitoring, personalized care, easier participant recruitment and more equitable access to treatment options for patients everywhere. The solution helps sponsors and researchers accelerate clinical development with remote data collection and novel digital endpoints from Biofourmis' library of biomarkers across multiple therapeutic areas.
The expanded solution offers a more holistic workflow, new data management automations and a seamless integration of essential clinical trial documentation, participant scheduling and data collection elements. Because the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform is highly configurable, study start-up timelines can be reduced from months to days. The connected platform seamlessly integrates with 40+ devices, enabling study teams the freedom to select the right device for the right disease area.
Biopharma companies can also tap into Biofourmis' growing principal investigator (PI) network. The network includes experienced and esteemed PIs from leading academic medical centers as a valuable resource to manage digitally driven research and accelerate the pace of recruitment with access to patient databases. Health systems that already use the Biofourmis platform for technology-enabled care delivery at home can easily and quickly expand their clinical research initiatives by leveraging the connected platform to include the Digital Clinical Trials functionality.
"We have consistently earned high satisfaction scores from both researchers and trial participants for our solutions. Now, we have identified additional ways to accelerate access to digital clinical trials, lower costs, and improve the experience for all stakeholders," said Biofourmis COO Jaydev Thakkar. "These new technology and service elements create a more holistic, turnkey solution that achieves those aims while offering greater synergies from drug development to commercialization and creating equitable access to treatment options and clinical research for patients everywhere."
Market-leading enhancements to the Digital Clinical Trials solution include
Robust eConsent and ePROs Capabilities: Robust screening and informed consent tools are integrated into workflows to accelerate recruitment, decrease enrollment time, and help ensure that participants fully understand risks and benefits associated with the trial. The documentation content is easily configurable and compliant with regulatory requirements. The enhanced ePROs (electronic patient-reported outcomes) collection capabilities drive adherence through automated reminders of participants' reporting requirements while offering them the ability to easily share outcomes beyond traditional clinical measures. Reporting flexibility offers investigators increased visibility into participant safety, health and experience.
Dynamic Participant Scheduling: Upon enrollment, the Digital Clinical Trials solution helps research stay on course while encouraging participant adherence and engagement through a virtual visit and schedule of assessment module that streamlines all the "to-do" items for the participant and caregiver, intuitively listing all the required patient reporting and external assessment tasks. Reminders and notifications help participants stay adherent; but if a task is missed, the schedule can automatically adjust so the participant can remain enrolled, and the trial can move forward.
InHome Services: As with all solutions within Biofourmis Connect and Care, In-Home Services such as nurse visits, phlebotomy, infusion, imaging, and other ancillary services delivered within the home are available via the connected platform to support decentralized clinical trials—which further reduces burden on investigators and participants.
Unmatched Safety Monitoring: The solution leverages AI to monitor the efficacy and side effects of drugs. A specific example includes pre-screening for clinical events triggered by high potassium levels (hyperkalemia), which can reduce clinical trial costs by decreasing frequent manual checks by medical professionals while still protecting patient safety. In addition, cardiac safety monitoring capabilities such as auto-detection of QTc prolongation (an extended interval between the heart contracting and relaxing) can improve the safety of trials by detecting patients earlier who are at risk of developing critical heart arrhythmias due to drug side effects.
"Leveraging digital tools and automating and accelerating trial processes for both researchers and participants can increase the likelihood that endpoints will be reached sooner, which lowers costs and simplifies tasks for everyone involved," Thakkar said. "More importantly, shorter trials with more meaningful results mean that groundbreaking new therapies can be discovered and developed faster to improve outcomes for patients worldwide."
About Biofourmis
Biofourmis brings the right care to every person, no matter where they are. The company's AI-driven solution collects and analyzes patient data in real time and identifies shifts that require proactive interventions. This vital innovation provides people everywhere with connected access to hospital-level services, virtual provider networks for remote care, in-home services, and life-changing clinical trials—all without leaving their homes. Trusted by leading health systems, payers, biopharma companies and patients alike, Biofourmis' connected platform improves patient outcomes, prevents hospital readmissions, accelerates drug development, and closes critical gaps in care—ultimately making science smarter, healthcare simpler, and patients healthier.
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PHARMACY MARKET
PR Newswire | October 19, 2023
Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. announced positive results of a clinical study demonstrating subcutaneous administration of 10 mL of a representative biologic product co-formulated with its ENHANZE® drug delivery technology, in approximately 30 seconds. In the study, the biologic was delivered with Halozyme's proprietary high-volume auto-injector (HVAI) in healthy volunteers. The injection was delivered successfully to all 23 participants and was well tolerated.
"To our knowledge, this is the first clinical study of its kind," said Mike LaBarre, chief technical officer of Halozyme. "Traditional subcutaneous auto-injector delivery methods are typically limited to volumes less than 2 mL or require long delivery times at slow rates for higher volumes. By enabling rapid subcutaneous injection of high volumes of biologic products, our ENHANZE drug delivery technology in combination with our proprietary HVAI has the potential to improve the patient experience for multiple therapies."
In the study, a representative biologic, immunoglobulin 10%, was delivered to 23 healthy volunteers. The primary endpoint of the study was achieved with all subjects receiving the completed dose with HVAI, demonstrating that 10 mL of a representative biologic product can be rapidly delivered using Halozyme's ENHANZE® and HVAI technologies.
Data Highlights
96% of participants stated that they would be willing to receive the injection again.
90% of participants indicated feeling either no pain or mild pain immediately after injection.
Erythema, swelling, and induration were generally minimal to mild and resolved by 90 minutes or less.
Biologics delivered subcutaneously through auto-injectors are typically restricted to doses of 1-2 mL. This limitation is caused by hyaluronan, a molecule that inhibits fluid dispersion in the subcutaneous space. Halozyme's ENHANZE® drug delivery technology is based on a proprietary recombinant human hyaluronidase PH20 (rHuPH20), an enzyme that locally degrades hyaluronan in the subcutaneous space. This temporarily increases the permeability of the tissue under the skin, allowing space for the biologic to enter, enabling it to be rapidly dispersed and absorbed into the bloodstream.
"These results support our continued dedication to providing innovative drug delivery options to patients," said Helen Torley, chief executive officer of Halozyme. "Our ENHANZE drug delivery and HVAI technologies have the potential to rapidly deliver large volume therapeutics subcutaneously with the potential for meaningful clinical benefits."
Halozyme's HVAI is available to partners for clinical use.
About Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc.
Halozyme is a biopharmaceutical company bringing disruptive solutions to significantly improve patient experiences and outcomes for emerging and established therapies. As the innovators of the ENHANZE® drug delivery technology with the proprietary enzyme rHuPH20, Halozyme's commercially-validated solution is used to facilitate the delivery of injected drugs and fluids in order to reduce the treatment burden to patients. Having touched more than 700,000 patient lives in post-marketing use in seven commercialized products across more than 100 global markets, Halozyme has licensed its ENHANZE® technology to leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies including Roche, Takeda, Pfizer, AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Alexion, argenx, Horizon Therapeutics, ViiV Healthcare and Chugai Pharmaceutical.
Halozyme also develops, manufactures and commercializes, for itself or with partners, drug-device combination products using its advanced auto-injector technology that are designed to provide commercial or functional advantages such as improved convenience and tolerability, and enhanced patient comfort and adherence. The Company has a commercial portfolio of proprietary products including XYOSTED®, TLANDO® and NOCDURNA® and partnered commercial products and ongoing product development programs with several pharmaceutical companies including Teva Pharmaceutical, Pfizer and Idorsia Pharmaceuticals.
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