Cancer informatics company Flatiron Health is collaborating with pharmaceutical company Sanofi to improve clinical trial data acquisition by deploying technology that digitally transfers data captured in the EHR directly into the clinical trial electronic data capture (EDC) system.
Founded in 2012, New York-based Flatiron gathers real-world oncology data and develops machine learning applications in cancer informatics. It works with more than 280 community cancer centers and eight academic cancer centers across the U.S., as well as more than 20 developers of oncology therapeutics. More than 3 million patient records are available for research in its network, with 75 percent from community practices, and 25 percent from academic cancer centers.
A 2022 article in The Cancer Letter notes that Flatiron was acquired in 2018 by Roche for $2.1 billion, and the company has more than 1,000 full-time employees and 1,500 flex-time employees around the world.
The multi-study collaboration between Sanofi and Flatiron will focus on transferring data from the EHR to the EDC system through Flatiron Health’s EHR-to-EDC product, Flatiron Clinical Pipe. Clinical trial sites will be able to reduce time spent on both manual, high-volume data entry and downstream data resolution issues, so that they have more time to spend with patients, the company said.
The collaboration will make it easier for sites to participate in oncology trials by reducing redundant, manual and often error-prone data entry processes, including taxing local lab management, Flatiron sad. This novel approach will be used across a portfolio of trials and a broad network of research sites, including both academic and community cancer centers.
The initial Sanofi trial using Flatiron’s technology had its first automated data push earlier this year, successfully transferring over 50 percent of study data from the EHR to the EDC. Sanofi and Flatiron will collaborate on data standards and mapping to expand the volume and types of data eligible for automated transfer. Additionally, as a result of deploying Flatiron Clinical Pipe, Flatiron expects the number of queries to decrease by roughly 50 percent, adding to efficiency gains for both sites and Sanofi study teams.
“Flatiron’s expansion into the clinical research space is a natural progression for us. With the FDA’s guidance on interoperable technology that allows electronic transmission of relevant EHR data to the EDC system, we knew we had an opportunity with Flatiron Clinical Pipe to unlock the potential of data captured in the EHR, reduce the burden of clinical trials and accelerate research timelines,” said Alex Deyle, general manager of clinical research for Flatiron Health, in a statement. “We’re incredibly excited to collaborate and partner with forward-thinkers like Sanofi, who share our aspiration to leverage data and technology to transform clinical research. We look forward to working with the industry to solve a variety of challenges in the clinical research space—for the benefit of sponsors, CROs, sites and ultimately, the patients.”
