Curebase has raised a $15 million series A for a new approach to decentralized trials that goes beyond the current drop of virtual trial platforms.
Straight out of the blocks, Curebase is looking to be different: Siteless trials, which use wearables, telehealth and telemedicine to help trials run from subjects’ homes, were long latent in their promise, but the COVID-19 pandemic sped up their adoption as a new way of trialing medicines and devices.
Many, including the likes of Science 37 and Medable, along with traditional CROs like PPD and LabCorp’s Covance, have also doubled down on a virtual trial platform. Curebase, however, says these only solve “narrow pieces of the problem” around a siteless system, where incorporating wearables for instance is making a trial suddenly siteless.
Curebase says it has a bigger picture platform, and has engineered a new approach to the entire clinical trial process, enabling complex studies that “can be done completely around the patient’s lifestyle.”
Its new platform “enables first-of-their kind study designs, in which patients participate both at home and in real-world settings, with best-in-class software experiences for patients, their doctors, and for telemedicine and mobile healthcare providers,” it said in a statement.
To take this forward, the company has grabbed $15 million in a series A to boost its trial software platform and virtual research site capabilities.
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The financing was led by GGV Capital with participation from Xfund, Bold Capital and several other institutional funds, and brings the total raised to $19M. Jeff Richards, managing partner at GGV Capital, joins the firm’s board.
“At GGV we look for companies that are redefining massive categories by building ambitious, ground-up software platforms,” said Richards. The $50 billion clinical trial industry is clearly about to transform itself, and Curebase has a vision to reinvent the entire ecosystem to reach any patient, anywhere.
“With a small amount of capital the team has already built a comprehensive software platform that is better than anything the multi-billion dollar incumbents have managed to create, and have signed up some of the top drug companies and CROs in the world as customers. With this significant $15M funding I think they will scale incredibly quickly and change the industry.”
During the pandemic, Curebase said operated six different COVID studies using community-based “pop-up drive-through testing sites” across the country, turning them into clinical data collection machines at scale.
It also taps doctors to supply ultrasounds, colonoscopy records and other data categories, something it says has not been done before in clinical trials.
“We are currently running clinical trial designs that most researchers think won’t be possible for another 5 years,” said Tom Lemberg, founder and CEO at Curebase.
“This is research where any patient can sign up at home and collect data whenever they go to their own doctor. We’re doing it in women’s health, cancer diagnostics, GI, and many other areas. Our software and our novel virtual site framework is already combining elements of home-based research, telemedicine research, real-world data, and clinical research as a care option in ways that would surprise a lot of clinical operations leaders in the industry.”