Mayo Clinic taps into blockchain technology for clinical trial design

The firm seeks to use Triall’s medical software to create immutable clinical trial records.

On Thursday, Dutch blockchain startup Triall announced that it has partnered with American nonprofit medical center Mayo Clinic to optimize clinical trial design and the management of study data. Starting this September, Triall’s eClinical platform will support a two-year multi-center pulmonary arterial hypertension clinical trial that includes 10 research sites and more than 500 patients across the United States. 

The software will support activities such as data capture, document management, study monitoring and consent. As told by Triall, the purpose of the collaboration is to demonstrate an immutable public ledger audit trail through its blockchain technology for boosting the integrity of clinical trial integrity. Investigators, regulators and stakeholders can then review and assess such trial-related data with trust, knowing that no one can modify the records.

In the U.S., the median cost of a clinical trial investigating new drugs or therapies is estimated at $19 million. Approval rates for new chemical entities and biologics typically hover between 10% and 20% from the preclinical phase to finish and can often take years of investigation.

Launched in 2018, Triall has commercialized its first blockchain product, Verial eTMF. It enables researchers to generate verifiable proofs of the authenticity of the clinical trial documents, such as patient diagnosis data. In addition, the firm is developing APIs through eClinical that enable existing third-party clinical trial software providers to connect to Triall’s blockchain infrastructure. The native TRL token is designed for ecosystem utility, such as paying compensation to clinical trial participants. If successful, Triall plans to further collaborate with the Mayo Clinic in the realm of decentralized medical research.