Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine and Trial Library have expanded a partnership to integrate the latter’s clinical trial discovery platform into the pharma’s oncology clinical development and medical affairs programs.
In a March 21 press release about the development, Trial Library CEO and founder Hala Borno, M.D., said the company is “delighted” to continue working with Johnson & Johnson to “change the standard practice for recruiting diverse populations to clinical trials.”
Trial Library’s software is designed to increase the participation of people from marginalized groups in clinical trials by making it easy for physicians to pre-screen and refer patients, as well as to get reimbursed for their pre-screening efforts. On the sponsor side, the company gives study teams insights on study design, recommendations on diverse trial sites and eligibility criteria from its network of healthcare providers.
The expanded partnership is the latest move by Johnson & Johnson to boost diversity in clinical trials, a problem that continues to plague the industry. In January, the company announced positive results from its VISIBLE study, which assessed the effectiveness of the company’s psoriasis med Tremfya in people with nonwhite skin tones. VISIBLE was the first large-scale psoriasis study to focus solely on whether a treatment would be effective in people of color.