VisualDx, a health technology company that developed a mobile-based skin cancer assessment tool for clinical decision support and a patient facing website, has teamed up with Science 37 to provide timely information to patients and physicians on clinical trials. The goal is to increase patient and physician awareness of clinical trials, provide an avenue to engage patients about them and make the often time-consuming process of clinical trial recruitment easier.
Science 37’s model is focused on enabling innovation in clinical trial design by facilitating clinical studies where participants can take part from their home.
VisualDx’s patient-facing website Skinsight and forthcoming CoreML-enabled app Aysa attracts over half a million unique visits per month with trusted and unbiased skin health information, according to a company news release.
“We believe Aysa will empower people to better understand diseases of the skin,” said VisualDx CEO and Cofounder Dr. Art Papier in a phone interview with Science 37 Cofounder and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Belinda Tan. “Science 37 is a perfect fit for us [as a collaboration partner] because you want to ensure that for clinical studies you have well-informed patients.”
Aysa will be the focus of a pilot study on skin complaints managed by Science 37. The machine learning-enabled app will analyze images of skin issues and educate users. VisualDx’s patient-facing triage app will also trigger links to Science 37-managed clinical study opportunities.
Tan noted that part of the benefit of integrating clinical study information in the context of treatment recommendations is that it can add another layer of engagement between physicians and patients on the merits of certain clinical studies.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Photo: FotografiaBasica, Getty Images
