In another move to build a strong foundation for its clinical trial testing business, Labcorp has announced that it will collaborate with Hawthorne Effect for decentralized clinical trial support at home and in the community.
The companies said that they plan to increase patient diversity and inclusion, decrease site burden, and accelerate enrollment and clinical study timelines. Hawthorne Effect's digital platform allows complex study visits and clinical data collection to be conducted in patients' homes or within the community. San Francisco Bay area-based Hawthorne reports that since launching in 2015, it has helped complete 76 trials.
Labcorp has been on a path with clinical trials and specialty testing. CEO Adam Schechter said on Day 2 of the 42nd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco that, in the long term, Labcorp is taking steps to be successful in phase II and phase III cell and gene therapy trials. However, Schechter said that its short-term growth prospects are in oncology, which accounts for 40% of large pharmaceutical trials, and women's health.
In the discussion, which is available via webcast, Schechter noted adding capability in cancer therapy selection testing with Labcorp's OmniSeq acquisition (2021) for solid tumor profiling using next generation sequencing, and Personal Genome Diagnostics (PGDx) acquisition (2022), which advanced Labcorp's liquid biopsy and tissue-based genomic testing capabilities.
Earlier in 2023, Labcorp spun off its clinical development business into an independent company, contract research organization Fortrea, to provide clinical trial management, market access, and commercialization to pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations.
