Science 37 raises a $29M Series C for “site-less” clinical trials

If you're not quite sure what healthcare "convergence" truly means and achieves, take a look at Science 37 and its four-pronged approach to modernizing clinical trials.

Science 37 cofounders Belinda Tan and Noah Craft

Science 37 cofounders Belinda Tan and Noah Craft

If you’re not quite sure what healthcare “convergence” truly means and achieves, take a look at Science 37.

Based in Playa Vista, California, the company operates at the intersection of four fields of science and technology; telemedicine, clinical trials, enterprise healthcare software, and digital media. All four unite around one central purpose.

“We basically started with the question: ‘What’s best for patients?’” explained cofounder and CEO Noah Craft in a phone interview.

The answer has evolved over the last two and a half years to include an end-to-end “site-less” solution for clinical trials. The model serves patients in their own homes, minimizing the burden of participation while also cutting costs and timelines for the sponsor.

Science 37 is now ready to scale, with a new $29 million Series C financing round led by Glynn Capital Management and GV (formerly Google Ventures). The company has now raised close to $70 million.

Both cofounders are physician-scientists, with résumés that prepared them well for clinical trial convergence. Craft previously ran his own clinical research site in Los Angeles. He has worked in enterprise healthcare software and founded a telemedicine company, DirectDerm, in 2010. The only piece missing was digital media strategy, which is now covered by a team of dedicated people.

That broad experience helps Science 37 overcome the many obvious roadblocks that exist in the field, such as regulatory requirements and the need for hands-on testing.

“Part of our comfort is that a lot of us come from a telemedicine background,” Craft said. “Knowing the legal and regulatory boundaries and standards in telemedicine, you become much more comfortable with diagnosing and treating people through telemedicine.”

When it comes to ordering scans or blood tests, Science 37’s remote physicians are licensed in the states they cover, meaning they can order the tests just like any other doctor in the region. The resulting data is transmitted through computers, which is standard practice in 2017, Craft noted. Above all, the remote monitoring just requires robust software and a sprinkling of good old-fashioned collaboration.

“Logistically, we have a policy called radical collaboration,” he explained. “So we work closely with lab companies, nursing companies. Most of the stuff we do ourselves when it comes to taking care of the patients and all the logistics of shipping drugs. But we do engage with the local healthcare ecosystem of the patient as well.”

As far as the FDA goes, every clinical trial is different. Overall, Craft said the agency is not dismissive; they too want to streamline the process and improve the quality of the data collected. Therein lies some of the other benefits of the patient-centric approach.

Craft believes a “site-less” clinical trial can deliver more authentic data on the individual’s habits, use, and response to therapies or devices. They’re in their natural environment after all.

At the same time, participants aren’t bound by geography when it comes to clinical trial inclusion. Much has been written about the lack of diversity in clinical trials (a vast majority of participants are white), along with the clustering of trials in major urban healthcare centers. Science 37’s telemedicine model democratizes access by reaching patients through social media platforms, Google, disease advocacy groups and more.

As Craft told MedCity News in January, empowering participants translates to empowered trials.

“We built an entire business around the idea that if you make it easier for patients to participate, it will improve recruitment for clinical trials and make [the process] faster,” he said.

Since an early partnership with Genentech, Science 37 has run drug and device trials in oncology, dermatology, psychiatry, neurology and diabetes. It works at a variety of scales in phases two through four.

The latest funding round will go towards company expansion and, given the global nature of drug development, a push overseas. The company also hopes to recruit more talent in all four areas of expertise.

Amgen Ventures also participated in the funding round, along with existing investors Lux Capital, Redmile Group, dRx Capital (a Qualcomm and Novartis collaboration), and Sanofi Ventures.

Photo: Science 37

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