Higi Partners with New Enterprise Ventures to Support Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Organizations in Efforts to Advance Health Equities
The partnership will work to match Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences organizations to innovative solutions that serve diverse and underserved populations, providing a new access point to engage in care
Chicago, IL – April 20, 2023, 2023– Higi, an organization built to solve for lack of access to care, has partnered with New Enterprise Ventures, a consulting firm and strategic leader with expertise in pharmaceutical and life sciences, as a new channel to match these organizations with the awareness, education, recruitment, and engagement tools they need to successfully address the care needs of underserved and diverse populations, at scale.
Following the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDAs) 2022 updated guidance on increasing diversity in clinical trials, it became an imperative for pharmaceutical and life sciences organizations to recruit and engage diverse populations despite challenges to doing so. The guidance is focused on ensuring that trials represent the diversity of the patient populations that will ultimately use the treatments discovered and advanced. Ensuring appropriate participation can help ensure the safety and effectiveness of drugs for all patient populations, improve the medical community’s understanding of disease prevention and treatment, and can support health equity by enabling access to lifesaving therapies the patient might not otherwise receive.[1] while the mandate is clear, creating awareness, encouraging sign-up and engaging diverse patient populations has proven difficult to achieve.
“We are excited to be working with Higi in an effort to remove the barriers associated with early diagnosis of disease and access to care including clinical research as a care option (CRAACO)” stated Chris Cresswell, New Enterprise Ventures CEO. “We believe Higi can serve to optimize and strengthen the Diverse Strategy Action Plans (required by the Draft FDA Guidance and the Depict Act), while providing comprehensive access to clinical trials for patients with chronic & acute diseases in historically underrepresented populations. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there is a need to increase racial and ethnic diversity in clinical trials. Twenty percent of drugs have a variation in responses across ethnic groups, yet 75 percent of clinical trial participants are white, while only 11 percent are Hispanic and fewer than 10 percent are Black and Asian.”
Higi enables access through digital channels and a physical footprint designed to meet consumers where they are to screen for health risks and navigate to appropriate interventions, including clinical trials.
“Achieving diversity in clinical trials is a requirement to advancing health equity” says Jeff Bennett, CEO at Higi. “The Higi platform is a key ingredient when it comes to reaching new audiences for clinical trial recruitment and can help consumers understand the options available to them based on their health risks and needs and navigate them to opportunities to engage in care they might not otherwise be aware of or have access to. Our partnership with New Enterprise Ventures will be transformative, as we work together to deliver a new channel that can support improved health and healthcare for all.”
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About Higi
Higi solves for lack of access to care by providing a digital first strategy to assess consumers’ ongoing health risks, deliver risk appropriate care management solutions, and navigate consumers to interventions offered by stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem at scale. We meet consumers where they are via our omnichannel national network of 6,000 FDA cleared free to use, community based Smart Health Stations, web, mobile, email and text tools, home-based biometric devices, and a nationally based clinical care team, that together delivers a unique combination of consumer centered, self-care and virtual care resources. As the centralized, trusted access point to care, Higi serves as the hub for curating health resources provided and sponsored by Higi, Retail, Health Systems, Health Plans and Employers, where consumers can choose with whom and when they share data to support coordinated care delivery.
About New Enterprise Ventures
New Enterprise Ventures is a consulting firm specializing in delivering transformative strategy and business development to accelerate our client’s penetration in the US healthcare market. We are uniquely positioned to guide early-stage companies and industry leaders to make better-informed business decisions that require both technical insight and unsurpassed access to cutting-edge technologies and economic buyers. www.newenterpriseventures.com
[1] https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/life-sciences/lack-of-diversity-clinical-trials.html