AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) has announced that it is joining the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network Avatar Research Program which was started in early 2016. The program is managed by M2Gen, a firm that deals in health informatics solutions.
“We are pleased to welcome AbbVie to the ORIEN Avatar Research Program,” said M2Gen’s founder and chief executive officer, William Dalton, after the pharmaceutical giant joined the program.
ORIEN Avatar’s goal is to foster collaboration among various stakeholders who are involved in cancer research and whose common goal is to discover and develop novel treatments in clinical trials. Among the pharmaceutical firms participating in the program, AbbVie is the fourth one to join. Other institutions that are on the program include 15 leading cancer hospitals that are based in the United States.
ORIEN Cancer Initiative
Having originated from the ORIEN Cancer Initiative, ORIEN Avatar Research Program is an original approach in cancer research. The effort links the leading cancer centers in the United States with a view to ensuring more collaboration in cancer research activities.
At the moment, the efforts are geared mainly towards 20 kinds of cancer. In the United States, it is estimated that the areas that the ORIEN Avatar program has chosen to concentrate on are likely to impact over 1.4 million patients who have recently been diagnosed with cancer. In the cancer hospitals and centers that are participating, patients are able to consensually donate molecular and clinical data to the TCC Protocol – Total Cancer Care. This assists in the building of data that is necessary for research. Over 150,000 patients have donate this sort of data so far.
Faster participant selection
Once patients have donated this data, it becomes easier to identify and pick clinical trial participants. In these efforts, pharmaceutical firms offer financial support and in return they get access to disease and de-identified genetic information which can come in handy when trying to discover and develop cancer treatments. Thus, by linking the right participant to the right clinical trial, the program assists in accelerating the discovery process as well as the speedier development of cancer drugs.
On Tuesday shares of AbbVie Inc fell by 0.18% to close the day at $65.98.