SEMCARE: A New Approach for Early Subject Enrolment in Clinical Trails

Scientists at St George’s, University of London will assist build a £1.2m data system which will build methods to easily identify sufferers best suitable for clinical trials.

The Semantic Data Platform for Healthcare Project (SEMCARE), will assist build a data system that will enhance how essential data from pioneering clinical trials is applied, enabling sufferers’ quicker access to new medicines and therapies. The project will figure out which volunteers are best suitable to a given study by using clinical requirements such as: gender, age, symptoms, diagnosis and lab outcomes.

Presently, nearly 80% of clinical studies fail to fulfil their patient registration quotas on time, resulting in delays in presenting new medicines. The SEMCARE project, financed by the European Commission, will bring together the skills of various clinical research institutes, and build a pan-European backed platform, that hospitals all over Europe can use for sufferer identification in clinical studies, and for diagnosis assistance, especially in the case of unusual diseases.

Two scientists, Dr Elijah R Behr and Professor Kausik Ray are leading the clinical side of the venture with a specific target on cardiac disorders.

Dr Behr, reader in cardiology at St George’s, stated: “The SEMCARE platform will provide an exclusive opportunity to take advantage of the electronic health record for figuring out sufferers who need treatments and knowing how well we are doing in providing treatments. We will then be capable to focus on patient groups for development of new treatments, device or drug based, or for observational study to develop new techniques for evaluating and treating risk.”