Clinical Ink has announced its acquisition of Digital Artefacts, a health-centric research firm offering a platform geared toward complex cognitive, behavioral, and physiological data capture. Clinical Ink CEO Ed Seguine spoke with Outsourcing-Pharma about the purchase and what it means for the company’s technology offerings, and for its clients.
OSP: How did Clinical Ink come to know about Digital Artefacts — had you partnered with the firm in the past?
ES: Clinical Ink identified 12 strategic themes we believe will impact the industry over the next three years. Three of those themes will require eCOA + sensor expertise:
- Data convergence (EDC, ePRO, ClinRO, sensors)
- Hybrid decentralized trials as a preferred approach
- Therapeutic expertise will require eCOA + sensor expertise
Based on these three themes we exhaustively canvassed the industry landscape to identify the right fit of technology capabilities, expertise in data science and AI, and broad-based experience beyond our industry.
Digital Artefacts (DA) stood out in that landscape evaluation as having clear strategic advantages. DA’s experience in cognitive self-assessment, behavioral monitoring, human factors engineering, and data science brings learnings from the video-game industry, military, self-driving vehicles, and academia to clinical trials. These are capabilities that are only understood at a cursory level within our industry.
Clinical Ink and Digital Artefacts had not previously worked together, but we have both been working in high-complexity therapeutic areas and execution models (Alzheimer’s, lupus, COVID, DCTs) and there are a lot of exciting opportunities to immediately collaborate.
OSP: Could you please offer some insight as to what about Digital Artefacts’ capabilities, core competencies, corporate philosophy, and other aspects make this a suitable match?
ES: Both companies share a heritage of pioneering new technologies and capabilities. Clinical Ink was the first company promoting eSource direct data capture to replace EDC. Digital Artefacts was among the first to patent self-directed cognitive assessments and deploy voice-based data analysis using artificial intelligence.
The excitement about digital endpoints is warranted, but without the ability to anchor these new measurements to the existing eCOA standards, these new advances are “orphaned” — meaning they are insufficient as stand-alone measures. Clinical Ink’s deep experience in eCOA coupled with DA’s …….