Amgen, Merck team with EQBMED to boost trial diversity
Yale University-backed community research site group EQBMED says Amgen and Merck, known as MSD outside the US and Canada, have joined efforts to improve diversity in clinical trials.
New Haven, Connecticut-based EQBMED, which stands for Equitable Breakthroughs in Medicine Development, announced the partnerships last week, explaining Amgen and MSD would work to enroll a greater diversity of patients at its sites.
According to the organization, “Amgen and Merck will co-design strategies aimed at fostering closer collaborations and engagements with local EQBMED trial sites and communities.
“This pilot program allows the participating institutions to work with patients, providers, industry leaders, technical experts, and the community at large to bring clinical trials to underrepresented and underserved patients,” it said in a press release.
Under the partnership, Amgen plans to “enhance infrastructure, trial capabilities, and capacities at community-facing sites,” while Merck will “develop a clinical trial site assessment model” for community sites. The US drug firm has also committed to providing “transportation support to help ease travel barriers for participants.”
EQBMED is led by the Yale School of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine, Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Coordinating Center, and Vanderbilt University and is part funded by a grant from US drug industry group PhRMA.
The organization aims to develop a network of 10 “community-facing” clinical trial sites. The first four, located in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, were announced in February.
EQBMED is one of several efforts launched in response to the 2022 Food and Drug Omnibus Reform Act (FDORA), which tasked the agency with working with sponsors, CROs, academia, and patient groups to increase the enrollment of underrepresented populations in studies.
Similar programs include the Association of Diversity in Clinical Trials (AOD), which launched a portal to make research more inclusive in January, and a deal between Thermo Fisher and the National Minority Quality Forum, signed in 2023.
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