Are your clinical trials risky? Are costs running away?
It’s very tricky to estimate clinical trial costs before a trial is run.
Try our free cost calculator. This is a regression model, trained on real clinical trial data.
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The clinical trial risk tool prototype will let you upload a PDF protocol and will directly identify some risk features.
We have a new version being developed which will also calculate cost.
Unlike other clinical trial cost calculators you may find online, our clinical trial cost models are regression models trained on past trials. You can download the training dataset here - the original source is here.
Here’s a preview of our training data that we used to develop our regression models:
The Clinical Trial Risk Tool:
We originally developed the Clinical Trial Risk Tool to estimate costs of Tuberculosis and HIV trials. In 2024, we extended the scope of the tool to cover other disease indications including COVID, Cystic fibrosis, Enteric and diarrheal diseases clinical trials cost models, Influenza clinical trials cost modelling, Malaria clinical trials cost models, Motor neurone disease, Multiple sclerosis, Neglected tropical diseases clinical trials cost modelling, Oncology, and Polio clinical trials cost modelling.
In addition to cost estimation, we’re looking at RCT risk assessment, informativeness and RCT complexity.
When you’re planning a clinical trial, you have to write the protocol.
This is a PDF document which is 200 pages long.
It says what drug you are testing, who will participate in your trial, over what time period, and what they will be required to do. It may also say how you will manufacture the drug, how it will be delivered, where the trial will take place, and how you will analyse the data.
If you want an organisation to fund your trial (a sponsor), they will need to read the protocol and estimate the cost, and be satisfied that the trial is not too risky.
To complete this risk assessment and cost assessment, you will need experts in multiple fields to read and assess the protocol. This is subjective (different people might come to different conclusions) and it’s slow.
The Clinical Trial Risk Tool unifies the technical knowledge in the protocol (medical or statistical information) with the business knowledge (finances, risk management).
Imagine you could have a tool which could read your protocols and estimate the cost and risk, immediately!
If you work for the trial sponsor, this helps you triage the protocols that you receive from investigators, identifying who’s worth pursuing
In a pharmaceutical company, this helps your business plan cash flow and quantify and diversify risk.
If you are investing in pharmaceutical development, this helps you understand your exposure to risk
If you’re a CRO (contract research organisation, i.e. the company that is contracted to run the trials), you can prepare quotes and cost estimates for your clients (pharma companies) quickly and easily.
On 8 October, Thomas Wood of Fast Data Science presented the Clinical Trial Risk Tool, along with the Harmony project, at the AI and Deep Learning for Enterprise (AI|DL) meetup sponsored by Daemon. You can now watch the recording of the live stream on AI|DL’s YouTube channel below: The Clinical Trial Risk Tool leverages natural language processing to identify risk factors in clinical trial protocols. The initial prototype Clinical Trial Risk Tool is online at https://app.
Shining a Light on Clinical Trial Risk: Exploring Clinical Trial Protocol Analysis Software Clinical trials are the backbone of medical progress, but navigating their design and execution can be complex. Fast Data Science is dedicated to helping researchers by analysing clinical trial protocols through the power of Natural Language Processing (NLP). We are presenting a selection of software which can be used for clinical trial protocol analysis or clinical trial cost prediction and risk assessment.
This month, I presented the Clinical Trial Risk Tool at the Plotly Dash in Action webinar. I was interviewed by Plotly’s Community Manager Adam Schroeder. You can watch the relevant part of the webinar below. The Clinical Trial Risk Tool was one of four interactive apps presented as part of the webinar. The speakers at the webinar were: Matteo Trachsel, Head of Sustainability at Thermoplan AG, Switzerland, who presented his Product Environmental Report Dash App, which calculates the carbon footprint of coffee machine usage.
