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Two former top Verily execs have started a company that aims to improve clinical trials by advancing new approaches and investing in new companies.
The startup, called Highlander Health, was co-founded by Amy Abernethy, the former chief medical officer of the Google spin-out and a former FDA official, and Brad Hirsch, who led clinical trial software company SignalPath before Verily bought it in 2021.
It comprises two parts. On one side, the Highlander Health Institute will provide philanthropic grants to health systems and other organizations to test solutions meant to streamline and speed up the generation of clinical evidence.
And through the separate investment arm, Highlander Health Partners, Abernethy and Hirsch plan to back established but growing healthcare companies they can help scale through technology and acquisitions. Some of the investments, which will average between $50 million to $100 million per deal, may be in companies improving clinical evidence generation, but Highlander isn’t limiting itself, Abernethy and Hirsch told Endpoints News.
“Clinical evidence generation itself is really still stuck in times past,” Abernethy said. “We’ve updated thinking about real-world data and real-world evidence, but still have a long way to go and haven’t done the real work needed to start to merge all of that thinking of updating clinical trials, real-world data and real-world evidence to a much more modern system.”
Trials are complex, inefficient and expensive, and participating in one can be disruptive to doctors’ practices because it requires a ton of time for data entry and completing regulatory documents and other requirements, Hirsch said. And it’s only getting more complicated.
“Our goal is to say, how can we leverage all available data? How can we look at the complexity of operating a trial, the complexity of being a patient or clinician that is taking part in that trial, and really streamline it and make it something that can be scaled,” Hirsch explained.
The pair have focused on modernizing clinical trials throughout their careers, including at Verily. But as an independent entity, he said Highlander can make progress in partnership with all stakeholders.
Highlander, in partnership with Lyda Hill Philanthropies, will provide funds for academic and community health systems to participate in projects to test ideas about ways to streamline and speed up clinical trial capabilities and evidence generation, Abernethy said.
In October, the company plans to share more details about specific projects it’s launching. As an example, Abernethy said a project might explore how data that already exist in electronic health records could be used to populate clinical trial data sets. That way, clinicians can focus on other elements, like documenting safety, rather than doing work that’s already been done, she said.
“What we hope to accomplish through these projects is not only describing the problems to be solved but then also showcasing different solutions, so that all stakeholders across the ecosystem have a chance to observe, learn and continue to move things forward,” she said.