What is AbbVie doing to address the diversity of clinical trials?
We are committed to being both intentional and representative when it comes to the inclusion of diverse populations of investigator site staff and patients in our clinical research. We want to ensure that every program offers equitable access and an enhanced trial experience.
To achieve this, we are making meaningful changes and improvements in our foundational processes, evolving our existing protocols, frameworks, policies and ways of working to better serve the needs of the patients who are affected by the diseases we are studying.
Why do we need to be more representative of different patient types?
There are many reasons why involving a diverse set of patient groups in clinical trials is important:
To have a full picture of the risk or benefit of a medical product, patients enrolled in a clinical trial should be representative of the types of patients who are likely to use the medical product if it is approved
Disease areas affect more than one patient type – we have a responsibility to ensure we are truly representing those affected by the diseases we are investigating
Having representative clinical trial populations will better inform regulatory review and decision-making which can ultimately reduce the number of post market commitments
Diverse enrollment gives the potential to accelerate clinical trials through opening up the pool of patients we can recruit from
Visibility helps to improve public confidence and perceptions about medicines
Opportunity to give a greater variety of patients more physician access to ultimately enhance their level of care and improve health equity
By taking into account the needs of the carers/ family who are on the trial journey too, we can build strong clinical trial advocates from the patients’ support network