As biotechs look to get clin­i­cal stud­ies back on track amid the pan­dem­ic, Med­able re­turned to the ven­ture well for the sec­ond time this year, bag­ging a $91 mil­lion Se­ries C to build out its vir­tu­al tri­al plat­form.

The soft­ware provider re­cent­ly launched three new apps for de­cen­tral­iz­ing clin­i­cal tri­als, and saw a 500% rev­enue spike this year. And it isn’t alone. Back in Au­gust, Sci­ence 37 se­cured a $40 mil­lion round for its vir­tu­al tri­al tech, with sup­port from No­var­tis, Sanofi Ven­tures and Am­gen. Pa­tients and re­searchers are tak­ing a lik­ing to the on­line ap­proach, sug­gest­ing reg­u­la­tors could al­low it to be­come a new nor­mal even af­ter the pan­dem­ic is over.

“The pan­dem­ic has made the world aware of the im­por­tance of clin­i­cal drug de­vel­op­ment,” Med­able CEO Michelle Long­mire said in a state­ment.

De­cen­tral­ized tri­als are sim­ply more con­ve­nient — vol­un­teers can pick up a phone to par­tic­i­pate, rather than risk­ing a vis­it to a clin­i­cal tri­al site, many of which are op­er­at­ing un­der re­stric­tions amid the pan­dem­ic.

Ac­cord­ing to a Glob­al­Da­ta poll post­ed in Sep­tem­ber, 67% of health ex­perts sur­veyed said they plan on con­duct­ing de­cen­tral­ized clin­i­cal tri­als due to Covid-19. Ac­cord­ing to Med­able, its cus­tomers are re­port­ing faster pa­tient en­roll­ment and in­creased re­ten­tion rates.

Parax­el, an­oth­er vir­tu­al tri­al play­er, said tri­als us­ing “pa­tient-cen­tric de­signs” take less time to re­cruit the first 100 pa­tients — an av­er­age of 4 months ver­sus 7 for all tri­als.

“Many da­ta sources re­port that pa­tients trav­el, on av­er­age, 30 miles to their re­search clin­ic, which adds a sig­nif­i­cant time and ef­fort bur­den, which is fur­ther am­pli­fied for frag­ile and vul­ner­a­ble pa­tients,” Med­able SVP of mar­ket­ing David Swanger said in an emailed state­ment. “As we have all be­come more com­fort­able with man­ag­ing oth­er as­pects of our lives on­line, such as bank­ing and shop­ping, then it is rea­son­able we would like to ex­tend that abil­i­ty and con­ve­nience to health­care par­tic­i­pa­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly clin­i­cal tri­als.”

This year, the Pa­lo Al­to, CA-based com­pa­ny launched Tele­Vis­it, which con­nects pa­tients with site co­or­di­na­tors and in­ves­ti­ga­tors; Tele­Con­sent, which al­lows pa­tients to vir­tu­al­ly con­sent and re-con­sent to clin­i­cal tri­als; and Tele­COA, which com­bines elec­tron­ic Clin­i­cal Out­come As­sess­ments (eCOAs) with Tele­Vis­its. It al­so struck part­ner­ships with Data­vant, AliveCor and MRN.

“We’re ex­cit­ed to break down yet an­oth­er bar­ri­er, and stream­line the path to greater par­tic­i­pant di­ver­si­ty, ac­cess, and en­gage­ment,” Long­mire said.

Since its found­ing in 2015, Med­able has raised more than $136 mil­lion. The Se­ries C was led by Sap­phire Ven­tures, with a hand from GSR Ven­tures and Stream­lined Ven­tures — the lat­est and like­ly not the last in­vestors to bet on a vir­tu­al fu­ture for clin­i­cal tri­als.

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

Digital therapeutics company Better Therapeutics announced on Thursday that it’s cutting 35% of its staff as it awaits FDA clearance for its first product.

The company, which launched eight years ago, is one of a growing group of companies seeking a digital alternative to traditional medicine. The space saw a record $7.5 billion in investments in 2021, according to Chris Dokomajilar at DealForma, with uses spanning ADHD, PTSD and other indications. However, private insurers have been slow to hop on board.