Can the glob­al­ly in­flu­en­tial Google rev­o­lu­tion­ize the multi­bil­lion-dol­lar clin­i­cal tri­al busi­ness?

Some of the biggest phar­mas out there think so, look­ing to Google’s sis­ter out­fit Ver­i­ly — op­er­at­ing un­der Al­pha­bet, the par­ent com­pa­ny — to guide the in­dus­try in­to the dig­i­tal age with its ex­tra­or­di­nary reach in­to the lives of bil­lions of peo­ple on the plan­et.

This morn­ing, No­var­tis, Pfiz­er, Sanofi and Ot­su­ka all lined up to jump on the Pro­ject Base­line plat­form at the Google-re­lat­ed life sci­ences di­vi­sion, look­ing to em­ploy the dig­i­tal Go­liath’s tech ser­vices in re­cruit­ing pa­tients and or­ga­niz­ing the mass of da­ta com­ing out of the glob­al tri­al sys­tem.

Build­ing on Base­line’s ini­tial plans to an­a­lyze da­ta on 10,000 vol­un­teers, the Google op­er­a­tion is now look­ing to steer peo­ple to drug stud­ies as they search for more in­for­ma­tion on the dis­eases that plague them. That can ex­tend Big Phar­ma’s reach — and in­flu­ence — in­to mil­lions of house­holds.

Just how big is that reach? One re­cent as­sess­ment con­clud­ed that Google con­trols 90% of the search en­gine mar­ket, with 63,000 search­es per sec­ond, while the av­er­age per­son makes 3 to 4 search­es per day. And health­care is one of their biggest sin­gle fo­cus­es.

Jes­si­ca Mega

This ini­tia­tive is hap­pen­ing at a time the FDA has been en­cour­ag­ing a fresh look at the way tri­als are de­signed and ex­e­cut­ed, look­ing to short­en the de­vel­op­ment path for the most promis­ing ther­a­pies — or trig­ger­ing a fast ex­e­cu­tion of the weak­est drug can­di­dates. 

For all the talk about change, though, the de­vel­op­ment path­way for new drugs has large­ly stuck with a tra­di­tion­al gold stan­dard in use for years. Ver­i­ly will see if it can steer a new di­rec­tion, and that has the po­ten­tial to make for some dra­mat­ic changes in the CRO world.

“No­var­tis, Ot­su­ka, Pfiz­er and Sanofi have been ear­ly adopters of ad­vanced tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal tools to im­prove clin­i­cal re­search op­er­a­tions, and to­geth­er we’re tak­ing an­oth­er step to­wards mak­ing re­search ac­ces­si­ble and gen­er­at­ing ev­i­dence to in­form bet­ter treat­ments and care,” not­ed Ver­i­ly CMO Jes­si­ca Mega in a pre­pared state­ment.

Im­age Source: Sipa USA via AP

The FDA’s Arthritis Advisory Committee on Thursday voted 10 for and 8 against the approval of ChemoCentryx’s $CCXI investigational drug avacopan as a treatment for adults with a rare and serious disease known as anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody (ANCA)-vasculitis.

The vote on whether the FDA should approve the drug was preceded by a split vote of 9 to 9 on whether the efficacy data support approval, and 10 to 8 that the safety profile of avacopan is adequate enough to support approval.

As if Biogen’s aducanumab isn’t controversial enough, the researchers at drug pricing watchdog ICER have drawn up the contours of a new debate: If the therapy does get approved for Alzheimer’s by June, what price should it command?

Their answer: At most $8,290 per year — and perhaps as little as $2,560.

Even at the top of the range, the proposed price is a fraction of the $50,000 that Wall Street has reportedly come to expect (although RBC analyst Brian Abrahams puts the consensus figure at $11.5K). With critics, including experts on the FDA’s advisory committee, making their fierce opposition to aducanumab’s approval loud and clear, the pricing pressure adds one extra wrinkle Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos doesn’t need as he orders full-steam preparation for a launch.