Healthcare data companies Atropos Health and Seqster are targeting underrepresented populations in clinical trials after the two companies formed a strategic partnership to establish turnkey patient registries.

Atropos, a provider of on-demand evidence from real-world data to healthcare and life science organisations, will provide its Health Evidence Network to Seqster. Seqster, which aggregates health data from different sources onto a single platform, will input longitudinal patient data.

The two US-headquartered companies will create turnkey patient registries that can generate evidence for clinical development. This process usually takes up to a year and can cost millions, Atropos Health said in a 14 December press release. The company added that the “speed-to-insight” of registry-based research the partnership offers will help underrepresented populations.

Seqster’s CEO Ardy Arianpour said: “By powering the Atropos Health Evidence Network with longitudinal patient data, we’ll be able to save health systems and life science enterprises cost and time on registry deployment.”

Underrepresentation of population groups is an ever-present issue in clinical trials. The lack of recruitment of racial minorities, women, and other groups in trials means there is an inherent bias in design results. In 2022, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued guidance on increasing underrepresented groups in trials.

Real-world data is becoming an effective way to include data from underrepresented populations in the lifecycle of a drug’s approval. England’s National Health Service (NHS) has been using it in clinical trials following the framework released by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

Seqster and Atropos Health aim to provide rapid evidence generation to both patients and partners. Seqster will receive access to Atropos Health’s portfolio of evidence-generation tools. This includes Geneva OS and ChatRWD, which the company launched in October 2023.

The generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools facilitate access to many of existing studies and active clinical trial designs. Geneva OS also includes the Clinical Research Acceleration for Trials (CRAFT) Emulation Toolkit, which improves trial recruitment and helps plan trial design.

Seqster is not the only company to tap Atropos Health’s technology. In September 2023, Johnson & Johnson’s company Janssen Research & Development signed an agreement with the healthcare data company to expedite clinical development.