Three years since founding Site Alliance in 2021, Genentech is now sharing data showing sites in the alliance enroll more Black and Hispanic/Latinx patients than other sites in the same studies and enroll these underrepresented groups about two times faster.
What’s more, in about 25% of the clinical studies the Site Alliance participated in, alliance oncology sites were the sole recruiter of Black or Hispanic/Latinx patients.
“We're actually seeing the results, and that is what makes me very happy,” Quita Highsmith, vice president and chief diversity officer at the Bay Area biotech, told Fierce Biotech in an interview. “It says to the organization that these patients do want to participate [in clinical research].”
Sites in the alliance are chosen based on the strength of their community ties and proven ability to engage with underrepresented groups, Highsmith said.
“We have a thing that we call the four B's: the bishop, the barbershop, the bodega and the beauty salon,” Highsmith said, explaining that those spots are where they receive a lot of information from communities of color. Alliance sites understand the importance of these places, she added, “which is why they have success in enrolling these populations.”
Highsmith believes the Site Alliance can bust the myth that underrepresented groups don’t want to participate in clinical trials as well as generate proven tactics to boost diversity in research that can then be implemented across the company. Currently focused on oncology and ophthalmology, Genentech is looking to expand the Site Alliance into other disease areas such as metabolism, cardiovascular and inflammatory bowel disease.
Though it started in 2021, the Site Alliance can trace its origins back to 2017. While setting up a patient summit for employees of Genentech, Highsmith had an unpleasant surprise.
“I wanted to have a diverse representation of patients that had participated in the clinical trials,” Highsmith said. “I could find not one Black, not one Hispanic patient, that had participated in our clinical studies.”
At the time, she said, “less than 10% of U.S. patients that were participating in clinical research were people of color.”
Startled by this stark lack of diversity, Highsmith felt compelled to act, and she founded Advancing Inclusive Research with a colleague in 2018.
“In 2018, we asked a group of advisers, clinical trial leaders, thought leaders, physicians [and] patient advocates to come together to help us think about how we could diversify the research at Genentech,” said Highsmith. The result was the Site Alliance, a network of clinical trial research sites that are committed to recruiting and retaining diverse patients.
Site Alliance includes nine sites from around the U.S. and, in partnership with Genentech’s parent company Roche, has expanded abroad into Canada, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, the U.K. and India.
“We want to deliver transformative medicine for all patients,” Highsmith said. “Inclusive research back in 2017 was kind of an opportunity. Today, it's a business imperative.”