Amy Abernethy now has a whole new set of tools to tap into as she scales up the clinical trial management platform at Verily.
The life sciences outfit — now officially a subsidiary of Alphabet on equal footing with Google — has acquired SignalPath for an undisclosed amount, giving it access to a system of digital solutions that make it easier to run clinical trials, and promise to simultaneously boost quality and efficiency.
“It’s our goal to modernize the way clinical trials are conducted for patients, researchers and sponsors alike,” said Abernethy, who left a top leadership position at the FDA to become Verily’s president of clinical studies platforms.
Verily has built a clinical trial system and evidence generation platform it calls Baseline, which offers data aggregation and analytics tools, as well as data collection options (think sensors and biomarkers) designed with decentralized and hybrid trials in mind. As part of that effort, it’s gathered a community of 500,000 people who have expressed interest in joining clinical trials promoted on Baseline.
With a similar goal, SignalPath was founded in 2014 to develop and sell a cloud-based portfolio to anyone who’s tasked with managing a clinical trial. Although no dollar figure was tied to the deal, Verily says it marks its first major acquisition.
The team will stay in Raleigh, NC even as they become Verily employees.
SignalPath CEO Brad Hirsch said integrating its suite of software within Verily’s business “accelerates our ability to scale these solutions and make them available to a larger group of sites as well as provide entirely new opportunities to our network.”
The acquisition comes as the FDA recently shot down an attempt by Verily to add a virtual motor exam for Parkinson’s disease with the Google smartwatch. In its rejection letter, the FDA said the motor exam and Verily’s algorithm, which sought to assess the motor symptom severity in adults who have been diagnosed with the debilitating disease, are “limited in their capacity to evaluate meaningful aspects of concepts of interest that are relevant to the patients’ ability to function in day-to-day life.”
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