Opyl’s clinical trial recruitment tool, Opin, continues to set the course for scale into the $4.8 billion global clinical trial recruitment market.

Opin, launched less than a year ago, uses artificial intelligence to match eligible patients to clinical trials.  Offering patients free access to every registered clinical trial in the world, patients register to the platform and then pass through a digital screening process to determine eligibility and a match. Opin customers are research organisations and biopharma companies searching for eligible patients, one of the most significant bottle necks and risks in a clinical trial.

A priority for the company during the half year has been the continued improvement of the Opin user experience for patients, a direct driver in capturing volunteered data and creating scalable value, matching patients to suitable trials. Opin was launched on market in May 2021.

During the 1H FY2022, Opyl (ASX:OPL) won several recruitment contracts successfully demonstrating the platform’s strength in attracting patients via social media and digital advertising channels, confirming a patients eligibility to participate and accurately matching them to appropriate trials.  The value of recruitment projects also increased during the period as the technical and service capabilities of the platform expanded.

Opin has also been very successful in attracting healthy volunteers to register to the platform, opening a new revenue stream and value opportunity for volunteers and customers.  Health volunteers are in high demand, and fundamental to a Phase I study.

 

Expansion

As a result, OPL anticipates the second half of the year to have stronger revenue as many recruitment contracts extend over six to nine months, and for growth to continue with the additional sales and services resources now onboard.

Going forward, a key metric of success will be on the continued growth of the number of patients registering to Opin and the acquisition of recruitment customers, primarily targeting contract research organisations (CROs) in the APAC region.

Opin is also preparing to recruit in languages other than English, commencing with Spanish and then Chinese in the coming weeks.

OPL chief executive officer Michelle Gallaher said the foundation for Opin’s growth is now firmly in place for the business to compete in the rapidly growing AUD$71b global clinical trials market and within that, the AUD $4.8b global clinical trial recruitment market. APAC is a region demonstrating considerable growth in clinical trials, supported by low COVID numbers and available hospital capacity.

“The greatest value driver for Opyl is the exponential expansion of the number of patients registering with Opin and our ability to connect them with further knowledge and options to participate in clinical studies, helping themselves and the researchers undertaking the studies,” she said.

“As our patient data grows, our value proposition to patients and customers strengthens, which translates into swiftly matching patients to trials.”

 

Technology development

A core goal for Opin is to ensure patients are assessed via a digital triage to accurately match them to trials. Opin’s point of difference is that it is a global matching service, recruiting and connecting qualified patients to sites in any country in the world, and our skills in using social media and search engine optimisation to reach patients that until now have been difficult to connect with.

Patient numbers registering week-on-week is a key metric of success, Gallaher said.

In February 2022, the Opin team kicked off a program of work to upgrade and refine the user experience, primarily to drive greater patient engagement and registrations, but also to deliver greater value and functionality for customers.

Opin is using a new generation artificial intelligence, GPT-3, which has the power to improve search, conversation, and text.

GPT-3 is being applied to creating copy content on Opin, creating disease/condition pages, delivering information value for patients, and encouraging registrations.

The company invested confidently in the Opin technology stack during the period, building up the platform tech team, improving data management systems and interoperability.  A key outcome of the investment is the ability to swiftly build feature pages for individual trials on the site and to provide a bespoke digital triage service, matching patients to the specific inclusion or exclusion criteria of the trial. The platform has applied machine learning to a novel pricing model, predicting the difficulty to recruit for each trial and pricing the project accordingly, accessing a technology developed on a sister Opyl platform – Trial Key.

Research and development also continued on Trial Key – a clinical trial prediction and protocol design platform – improving data inputs, functionality and prediction accuracy associated with trial variables, supported by a Commonwealth Government Innovation Connections Grant and in collaboration with the RMIT University School of Computational Sciences.

 

Early scaling of primary growth drivers

The growth in the Opin and Social Media Insights offering has resulted in the early scaling of two primary growth drivers – clinical trial recruitment and social media insights.

Based on early revenue and customer feedback and response, the consolidated entity determined that the most significant growth potential is in Opin and clinical trial recruitment revenue, moving Opin into the priority position within the business.

The Social Media Insights team secured several new biopharma and medtech project customers in Australia and the US, as well as expanding the overall size (revenue and scope) of each project contract.

Master Services Agreements were signed with all the new Insights customers reducing delay in approvals and invoicing for potential future projects.  Revenue from these projects will be predominantly recognised in H2.

This article was developed in collaboration with Opyl, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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