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| Medidata co-founder and co-CEO Glen De Vries, and the cover of his recently published book, "The Patient Equation" / Courtesy of Medidata |
By Park Jae-hyuk
Korean pharmaceutical companies began to test their COVID-19 treatment and vaccine candidates in a "virtualized" format, through their partnerships with Medidata, a Dassault Systemes subsidiary which offers a cloud platform for the entire clinical trial process.
Glen De Vries, co-founder and co-CEO of Medidata, told The Korea Times in a recent interview that his company has had many conversations with Korean drugmakers and most of them have developed into partnerships.
"Korean biopharmaceutical companies are utilizing our solutions within their ongoing COVID-19 clinical trials," he said.
His company's platform is already being used in the United States for the development of mRNA-1273, Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The U.S. drugmaker's clinical trial using the Medidata platform was one of the largest clinical trials ever to be conducted in a virtualized format.
"The response to the impact of COVID-19 on clinical studies has been the increased use of and reliance on solutions like trial virtualization," De Vries said.
"Our technology solutions enable virtualized trials that can keep current trials moving forward and initiating new trials, while decreasing the potential spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19 using remote monitoring ― further prioritizing the health and safety of patients."
The co-founder said his company has talked with Korean biopharmaceutical companies not only about COVID-19 vaccine development, but also for other therapeutic areas, because of their growing interest in remote monitoring.
"We are continuously forming partnerships with major Korean biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, such as Hanmi Pharmaceutical, Celltrion, Medytox, Boryung Pharmaceutical and SCM Lifescience," he said.
"Hanmi and Medytox are using our risk-based monitoring solution to extend their clinical trial practices beyond Korea by adopting global standards."
He considered the pandemic has led global authorities and regulatory agencies worldwide to demonstrate a general openness to the integration of technology with clinical trials.
"Now that we are able to utilize technology that we didn't have years ago, we can consider this as an opportunity to place patients at the center of how we develop research tools, and enhance interaction and engagement," he said.
"Allowing for remote consent, monitoring and tele-visits will help medical research to advance, even in the face of a pandemic."
In this regard, he published a book recently titled, "The Patient Equation," to introduce the new paradigm of new medicine development.
"The term Patient Equation means that there is a mathematical framework to make sure that we can repeatedly and reliably identify those therapies that are going to reach people at the right time in the right amount to create the best possible medical outcome," he said.
"I see further opportunities of patient equations by looking at a much broader set of data in a much more sophisticated way. I don't think my thoughts on patient equation is restricted to mere certain parts of the globe, but everywhere, including South Korea."
