US breast cancer charity the Tigerlily Foundation has launched a clinical trial framework aimed at encouraging clinical trial site managers to improve diversity in research.
Known as I Am Included, the framework was developed with North Carolina-based lab diagnostic company Labcorp and intends to increase the amount of ethnic and racial diversity within clinical trials with the aim of creating results that better represent the broader patient population.
The Tigerlily Foundation describes the framework as a modernised multi-stakeholder framework for sharing best practices. It comes in response after the charity and Labcop hosted Patient Listening and Clinical Site Listening Summits that found diversity to be one of the largest concerns among stakeholders.
Maimah Karmo, founder of the Tigerlily Foundation, said: “Partnership without action is just admiring the problem. We have had too many conversations about the problems and barriers, and it's time we push for solutions that eliminate barriers for patients in clinical trials and make sites accessible, culturally inviting and diverse. Our work with Labcorp demonstrates action.”
Improving ethnic and racial diversity among clinical trial participants has been a key issue in the pharmaceutical industry for some time. Clinical Trials Arena has previously reported on the need for greater diversity across patient pools.
Labcorp vice president Bill Hanlon said: “Labcorp is committed to making life-saving clinical trials more accessible in underserved, high-risk communities. In partnership with the Tigerlily Foundation, we have developed an actionable framework to support site leaders and research centres to advance inclusivity in clinical research and to advance new medicines that will benefit all populations with disease.”
Last week at the FT Global Pharma and Biotech Summit in London, UK, increasing diversity in clinical trials took centre stage in a discussion that saw suggestions such as an approach by pharmaceutical company Takeda, which is translating trial guidelines into multiple languages.
