Critical Path Institute (C-Path) and the Center for Health + Technology (CHeT) at University of Rochester today announced the release of two seminal publications about digital health technologies for Parkinson's. These technologies, such as smartphones and wearable sensors, offer an opportunity for objective, frequent and remote assessment of people with Parkinson's.
With 10 million people living with Parkinson's worldwide, collaboration and data sharing are crucial for driving innovation in drug development for the fastest-growing degenerative neurological condition.
Research leaders at CHeT have joined forces with organizations and regulators through C-Path's Critical Path for Parkinson's (CPP) Consortium, a precompetitive public-private partnership. CPP aims to accelerate the regulatory endorsement of digital tools in Parkinson's clinical trials through its Digital Drug Development Tools (3DT) initiative.
In June 2023, the Journal of Parkinson's Disease published two open access manuscripts, representing companion papers from this partnership that detail steps in conducting interviews of people with Parkinson's who participated in a clinical research study using smartphones. The manuscripts report on relevant symptoms in early Parkinson's and assess the relevance of digital measures from a smartphone application and smartwatch from the patient perspective.
The study was led by Jamie Adams, M.D., Associate Professor of Neurology and Associate Director of CheT at the University of Rochester and Jennifer Mammen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of Rhode Island, with support from CPP.
"This project pioneers a new path to efficiently advance tools aligned with the patient voice by engaging with regulatory agencies early and often," said Diane Stephenson, Ph.D., CPP Executive Director. "C-Path remains committed to learning what matters most to people living with Parkinson's."
"These manuscripts describe a novel methodology that will help inform the use of digital health technologies in clinical trials for Parkinson's disease and support more objective and patient-centered measures. The goal is to enable efficient, data-driven, and patient-centric utilization of digital health technologies to speed therapeutic development," said Adams. "Sharing the results with the study participants and witnessing how this information helped them in new ways has been most rewarding."
John Crawford, a CPP advisor, Parkinson's advocate, and manuscript coauthor states, "Digital health technologies have the potential to significantly impact Parkinson's management and have already revolutionized clinical trial conduct. Their advancement expedites trials, enhances intelligence, reduces costs, and ultimately accelerates the delivery of new therapies and technologies to patients."
The new publications coincide with CPP's participation in the World Parkinson's Congress taking place in Barcelona, Spain July 4-7, 2023. CPP will present two posters, Recommendations for Parkinson's Clinical Trials using Digital Health Technologies and Worldwide Collaborative Framework for Optimizing New Parkinson's Treatment Trials with Patient Centric Outcome Measures, at the conference coauthored by people living with Parkinson's highlighting the importance of worldwide collaborations.
About Critical Path Institute
Critical Path Institute (C-Path) is an independent, nonprofit organization established in 2005 as a public and private partnership. C-Path's mission is to catalyze the development of new approaches that advance medical innovation and regulatory science, accelerating the path to a healthier world. An international leader in forming collaborations, C-Path has established numerous global consortia that currently include more than 1,600 scientists from government and regulatory agencies, academia, patient organizations, disease foundations, and hundreds of pharmaceutical and biotech companies. C-Path U.S. is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona and C-Path Europe is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands with additional staff in multiple other locations.
C-Path FDA Acknowledgement
The Center for Health + Technology (CHeT) is an academic research organization within the University of Rochester Medical Center. We are comprised of six units, with expertise in clinical trials coordination, clinical materials services, patient and caregiver-reported outcome measures, tech research and innovation, data modeling and predictive analysis, and health policy. Our skilled team of consultants are readily available to provide guidance to academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies, technology firms, not-for-profit foundations, advocacy groups, and the federal government.