US drug firm Merck & Co. (known as MSD outside North America and Canada), has hired trials tech firm N-Power Medicine to expand access to its cancer studies.
The deal – financial terms of which were not disclosed – will see Redwood City, California-based N-Power apply its real-time registry and point-of-care platform to enable more oncologists and the patients they care for, to participate in research.
Marjorie Green, head of oncology clinical development at Merck, cited N-Power’s “new approach to expanding clinical research” as motivation for the partnership, adding it “provides the opportunity to foster critically-needed innovation in the cancer care ecosystem.”
N-Power’s approach is to “to partner with oncology clinics to bring the resources and reinvented framework that are needed to meaningfully expand access” according to CEO, Mark Lee.
The firm offers a range of core artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies: a clinical trial suite that provides patient recruitment, analytics and support services; and a data generation suite, designed to data gathering and quality support.
For example, N-Power’s system – known as the real-time Kaleido Registry – uses AI to collect standardized patient data in an effort to streamline and enhance trial recruitment and enrolment.
Financial backing
News of the Merck partnership comes just a few months after N-Power completed a $72 million Series B funding round – led by the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, a venture capital organisation run by the US drug maker.
According to an N-Power statement issued at the time “The funds will support the expansion of the company’s network of oncology clinics and biopharmaceutical company collaborations.”
N-Power is not the only firm backed by the Fund in recent weeks. At the end of June it made a strategic investment into Mumbai, India healthcare imaging technology company Qure.ai.
And, a few weeks before that, the Fund invested in DELFI Diagnostics, a developer of blood tests that uses AI to enhance whole genome sequencing in cancer and other disease areas.
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