Bringing the Clinical Trial System into the 21st Century — Finally

A dated system has failed to meet patient needs for far too long.
We're doing something about it.

Power Clinical Trial Search Page
Michael “Bask” Gill and Brandon Li, Co-Founders @ PowerIn 2021, my dad was diagnosed with multiple myeloma – a chance discovery after a fractured vertebra from a minor fall. Six months later, he’d lost 60 pounds and was no longer responding to chemo. Like any son would, I spent countless hours poring over published studies to ensure he would get the best possible treatment.Sadly, because he started on this first line of therapy well before I’d gotten my bearings, I failed: not only did his first line of treatment disqualify him from the most promising Phase 3 immunotherapy trials, I didn’t realize that the regimen itself was terribly outdated until after he began.We eventually got Pops onto a different line of therapy, but had he been more frail, it’s entirely possible that this first medical misstep would’ve been his last.Which is to say, relative to many, we were lucky. Every day patients like my dad are pushed away from clinical research because of dense jargon, unclear tradeoffs, and an opaque, time-consuming enrollment process. A dear friend of Brandon’s had a similar experience: given an unacceptable prognosis, she endured a grueling search for a cancer clinical trial that ultimately led to her remission.
Seeing all this struggle firsthand is why we started Power: by reimagining trial recruitment with the patient at its core, we can help the system function better for everyone involved. Today we’re proud to share that our team’s hard work has been validated through a $12 million Series A, led by Kin and Contrary with support from our existing investor Footwork. We look forward to continuing to build the network for life science R&D.
Power Fundraising Announcement

Building a modern network for clinical research

First, simplify the patient experienceTo build our patient product, we took an approach similar to marketplaces like Zillow. We developed technology that aggregates clinical trial information and feeds it into Power’s patient interface. Along the way, we filled our days with patient calls to make sure each piece was comprehensible. Today, our product seamlessly ushers patients through their journey in three key ways:
  1. Discover: We make it easy for a diverse patient base to find Power and make it straightforward for them to discover relevant trials.
  2. Evaluate: We provide patients with plain-language summaries, FAQs, and eligibility requirements, to help them understand each trial’s tradeoffs.
  3. Connect: We make it simple for patients to connect and communicate directly with researchers.
Data tells us our product is working: over 600,000 patients used Power to discover clinical trials last year. Now, as nice as that number sounds, the stories we hear from patients every week mean much more to us. Whether describing how Power shaved critical weeks off their trial search, or how they accessed a therapy that improved their life, we’ve been moved to see how many patients now feel empowered in a once-hopeless situation.Next, give researchers a consumer-grade way to accelerate enrollment Now, helping these patients contact trials isn’t helpful if they don’t end up getting a response. To make this experience better for patients we needed researchers using our platform responding to patients.If you’ve talked to clinical research coordinators, you know that they’re asked to use a tremendous number of tools, most of which are clunky and confusing. To buck that trend, we poured months into the first ever self-serve recruitment management platform: a simple home for researchers to converse with the 90% of patients who qualify for their trial but live in underserved locations.We immediately saw dozens of study teams signing up - a number which has continued to grow by more than 20% each month. Why? Not only were patients more likely to complete screening when applying to Power sites, but these researchers were more likely to recruit patient cohorts that actually represent the US census. Case in point: a G.I. trial who activated two dozen sites on Power ended up raising enrollment rates by 25% while simultaneously recruiting patients who were 81% non-white.As time went on, we spent more and more time in difficult-to-recruit therapeutic areas like oncology. To support these challenging protocols, we automated the collection and review of EMRs through novel applications of AI. So far, our researchers love us for it: by only contacting EMR-qualified patients, and skipping past the record collection step, the average site is saving almost a whole person-month over the course of a trial. Plus they’re spending 90% less time reviewing records.
Traditional versus modern recruitment comparison
Finally, we empowered life science companies to support patient educationAt this point, we set our sights on deepening our collaboration with life science companies. Historically, these teams have been forced to shoe-horn critical data into interfaces not designed for the broader public.Power changed this.Our platform empowers the medical research community to claim their trials and manage their Power profile, ensuring patients always have access to the most recent trial data. We also make it turnkey to add short videos that further explain the trial, post quotes from key opinion leaders, and link to published data or relevant research. Our life science partners report huge relief at being able to communicate information about their trial in a way that is clear and accessible, and excitement at finally being able to reach patients beyond their usual networks.

Transforming an Industry

While we’re proud of all this progress, and optimistic about what the future holds, we know that the real victory for patients requires broader collaboration.
That’s why we’re aiming to set a new standard for the clinical trial industry at large. To this end, we recently published Blueprint for Modern Patient Recruitment: Redefining the Approach to Patient Recruitment in Clinical Trials. Rigorously researched and crafted in partnership with Murray Abramson, MD, MPH, and Former Head of Global Clinical Operations at Biogen; Victoria DiBiaso, VP, Global Head Patient Informed Development & Health Value Translation at Sanofi; Antonios Clapsis, Former President, CVS Clinical Trial Services; Sadaf Eslami, Senior Clinical Trial Manager at IDEAYA Biosciences; and Anthony Yanni, MD, SVP and Global Head of Patient Centricity at Astellas Pharma, the white paper maps out how stakeholders across the industry can work together to transition from traditional to modern patient recruitment.Because if we’ve learned anything, it’s that all the key stakeholders — patients, researchers, and trial sponsors — are trying to find each other and save lives.The only thing standing in their way is an outdated system.
Unbiased ResultsWe believe in providing patients with all the options.
Your Data Stays Your DataWe only share your information with the clinical trials you're trying to access.
Verified Trials OnlyAll of our trials are run by licensed doctors, researchers, and healthcare companies.
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