Today, we are going to shed some light on how blockchain boost clinical research quality. Researchers are facing various challenges regarding trust and transparency in clinical data. The huge amounts of data created in clinical trials are outpacing the ability of legacy data-management platforms to administer the competing needs of data sharing, patient privacy, and data integrity
The tricky and unpredictable nature of the clinical trial process is a crucial driver of high costs for pharmaceutical drugs. Many pharmaceutical companies aim to create 2-3 new drugs per year, to rationalize the costs of drug development. However, the success rate with clinical trials decreases the chances of a successful product to nearly zero.
This huge uncertainty results in higher prices for everyone, from the investigator to the end consumer.
Can Blockchain Boost Clinical Research Quality? How?
Today, there is a great demand for enterprise blockchain development solutions and blockchain development companies. Blockchain development technology is appearing as an innovative tool across all areas of industry. Fortunately, blockchain technology for pharmaceutical industry is bringing significant attention in the research community that can provide solutions to all of these problems.
Blockchain technology utilizes a distributed computer network platform that enables databases to store time-stamped transaction records and documents. Each server in the network processes and verifies each data entry, then archives all transactions, along with the history trail.
The best part about blockchain is that data stored in a blockchain is essentially impossible to hack, temper, or steal. This is because the ledger is not kept on a single repository, but is spread throughout multiple databases in replicate copies. These verification requirements ensure that stored data remains intact and immutable. The blockchain technology is a safe and secure platform for storing and processing all types of valuable information, from clinical trial analysis results to business workflow documents to patients’ medical data and blueprints of genetic information.
Blockchain in Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals
Blockchain development solutions in healthcare possess the capability to solve some of the biggest challenges in the industry. It enables real-time visibility into the entire clinical trial supply chain.
“Blockchain technology has the potential to solve many challenges facing clinical trial processes, such as accurately reproducing and sharing data, privacy concerns, and patient enrollment strategies”, said Caron Dhillon health care analyst at Results Healthcare.
“Perhaps most importantly, through its ability to track events in chronological order and with full transparency, blockchain allows for a high level of data authenticity throughout the whole document flow in a clinical trial, ensuring the trust of the data and its integrity,” she told us.
How Blockchain Technology Could Help in Clinical Trials?
Improving patient recruitment
Blockchain in healthcare has the capacity to dramatically enhance the patient recruitment process. With blockchain solutions, one could share patient information with pharmaceutical or contract research organizations without disclosing the patient’s identity. This could provide more information about potential participants who are likely to be motivated to join a study.
Maintaining medical privacy
Blockchain technology can develop a secure tracking system for any data generated from patient-physician interactions. Blockchain anonymity allows storing and sharing of electronic health record (EHR) data transparently, along with maintaining patient privacy. This could free huge amounts of data for clinical research.
Securing data integrity
Good quality data from clinical trials requires security and an immutable audit trail. Blockchain secures data integrity with cryptographic validation of each transaction.
Read More: How Blockchain Projects Battle for Healthcare Data Protection
Traceability of consent
In a recent concept study, “researchers from the University of Paris and Columbia University applied cryptographic validation to transactions related to patient consent and the clinical research protocol for a fake experimental study. Each patient consent was time-stamped on the blockchain, as were consent renewals for protocol revisions. The resulting master data collection traced each consent to a version of the revised protocol. The result was a cryptographic representation of the real consent and protocol document data that can be verified on the web”.
Read More: How Blockchain Can Help Fight the Problem of Fake and Counterfeit Drugs?
Closing thoughts:
Let’s make a long story short! Yes, blockchain can boost clinical research quality. Three of the biggest pharmaceutical conglomerates – Pfizer, Amgen, and Sanofi – are working together to find the best ways to employ blockchain technology, from storing safe data to speeding up clinical trials and ultimately lowering drug development costs. What are your thoughts on how can blockchain boost clinical research quality? In case of any queries, feel free to approach us for a no-obligation FREE consultation!
