Curebase Unlocks Drug Development With Remote Clinical Trials; Raises $15M Led By GGV Capital
SAN FRANCISCO, May 25 — Curebase today announced $15M in Series A funding to continue developing its decentralized clinical trial software platform and virtual research site capabilities, powering research where any patient, anywhere, can be part of clinical trials at home and with their own doctor.
The financing was led by GGV Capital with participation from Xfund, Bold Capital, and several other institutional funds, and brings the total raised to $19M. Jeff Richards, managing partner, GGV Capital will join the board of directors.
Current decentralized clinical trial companies have focused on narrow pieces of the problem, like incorporating wearables, Curebase has engineered a new approach to the entire clinical trial process, enabling complex studies that can be done completely around the patient’s lifestyle. The platform enables first-of-their kind study designs, in which patients participate both at home and in real-world settings, with best-in-class software experiences for patients, their doctors, and for telemedicine and mobile healthcare providers.
After the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, a large swath of clinical trials had to be halted, costing some of the largest pharmaceutical companies hundreds of millions in operational and commercial losses due to the inability to bring drugs to market as planned. All the while, Curebase was enrolling thousands of patients into their novel study designs that were left unaffected by the pandemic’s impact. The FDA had issued guidance in March 2020 that set the groundwork for the broader adoption of more patient centric studies, like the ones Curebase was running, in order to ensure trial continuity. Companies that were left stranded by the pandemic, and emboldened with the FDA’s green light, took Curebase’s lead to make trials not only more patient centric, but faster and more cost effective.
Curebase has grown substantially over the past year. In 2020 alone, the company saw 3x revenue growth, and 4x the number of clinical trials in operation. The company leveraged its platform to implement unique models for conducting clinical trials that proved vital to the continuity of research during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“At GGV we look for companies that are redefining massive categories by building ambitious, ground-up software platforms. The $50B clinical trial industry is clearly about to transform itself, and Curebase has a clear vision to reinvent the entire ecosystem to reach any patient, anywhere. With a small amount of capital the team has already built a comprehensive software platform that is better than anything the multi-billion dollar incumbents have managed to create, and have signed up some of the top drug companies and CROs in the world as customers. With this significant $15M funding I think they will scale incredibly quickly and change the industry,” Jeff Richards, managing partner at GGV Capital and new board member.
Decentralized Clinical Research Solutions Reach More Patients
Curebase is currently operating over a dozen clinical studies that are each at the forefront of decentralized research methodologies. These methodologies reach patients wherever they live and are powered by easy-to-use software applications for patients, physicians, and sponsors. During the pandemic, Curebase operated six different COVID-19 studies using community-based pop-up drive-through testing sites across the country, turning them into clinical data collection machines at scale with incredible patient diversity. The company’s other industry-leading study designs leverage real-world physicians to supply ultrasounds, colonoscopy records, and other data categories — something that has not been done before in clinical trials. Curebase also played a significant role in innovating drug study designs, including a study in which its platform virtualized all the visit types to have mobile phlebotomists collect ECG, vitals, and blood draws, while the patient’s clinician was able to use the platform to conduct telemedicine visits and remotely view patient data.
“We are currently running clinical trial designs that most researchers think won’t be possible for another 5 years. This is research where any patient can sign up at home and collect data whenever they go to their own doctor. We’re doing it in women’s health, cancer diagnostics, GI, and many other areas. Our software and our novel virtual site framework is already combining elements of home-based research, telemedicine research, real-world data, and clinical research as a care option in ways that would surprise a lot of clinical operations leaders in the industry,” Tom Lemberg, founder and CEO, Curebase.
With this latest round of funding, Curebase is putting a continued focus on platform development and expanding its market presence. The investment will solidify the company’s technology as the market leader in the use of real-world medical data in clinical research, home care, telemedicine, and clinical research as care option methods that utilize physicians, labs, pharmacies and other real-world healthcare touchpoints. Investment in commercial efforts will expand that technology into more therapeutic areas and into new geographies, particularly the European clinical trial market.
About Curebase
Curebase is the leading provider of decentralized clinical research software and services, with the goal of powering research where any patient, anywhere can be part of clinical trials at home and with their own doctor. The Curebase platform enables any patient and any healthcare provider to be part of a clinical study, accelerating enrollment and enabling novel study designs with diverse populations. Curebase operates as a complete eClinical software platform and virtual research site with features including digital recruitment, ePRO, eCOA, telemedicine, eConsent, eSource, and more.
