Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative
Organization
Quantum Leap’s mission is to integrate high-impact research with clinical processes and systems technology, resulting in improved data management and information systems, greater access to clinical trial matching and sponsorship, and greater benefit to providers, patients, and researchers. The organization’s goal is to improve and save lives.
BreastCancerTrials.org is one of Quantum Leap’s core programs. It was launched in 2008 as a nonprofit, patient-friendly clinical trial matching service designed to empower all people with breast cancer to learn about and find clinical trials right for them by matching patients to the most relevant breast cancer clinical trials. CTMatch is the backend trial matching platform that powers BreastCancerTrials.org. The mission of CTMatch is to expand personalized trial matching to all cancers and diseases to support clinical trial participation for all patients.
Situation
CTMatch has developed best-in-class technology for matching patients to clinical trials and is looking to evaluate business models that might be employed for this technology. For example, CTMatch currently powers BreastCancerTrials.org, and there is potential to license the CTMatch platform to power clinical matching programs for other cancers and diseases. CTMatch provides several benefits to customers:
- It does not sell patient data and makes unbiased clinical trial recommendations, and is the only nonprofit trial matching service;
- Its algorithm was developed by research professionals in collaboration with clinicians and patient advocates over many years;
- It is compatible with the most up-to-date data standards being used by healthcare systems; and
- Its configurable architecture supports patient and trial information from multiple sources and applications for websites and mobile devices.
Project Objectives
Quantum Leap asked the ACT team to develop business model options for CTMatch that fit within its organizational values (e.g., no monetization of patient data) and enable Quantum Leap to be economically self-sustaining. This work required understanding CTMatch’s unique selling points within the competitive landscape, identifying promising market opportunities, considering go-to-market requirements, and projecting the investment, revenue, and risks of pursuing these opportunities.
Project Overview
The project consisted of three key phases:
- Discovery: Understanding the technology, its potential uses, and the current landscape around trial matching
- Exploration: Wide assessment of different potential customers, value propositions, and go-to-market considerations for reaching them
- Recommendations: Detailed phasing and go-to-market recommendations for the two selected (and complementary) options
Key Recommendations
The ACT team recommended that Quantum Leap Healthcare:
- Offer fully outsourced clinical trial matching services to other patient advocacy organizations to enable those organizations to
- offer a valuable service to their “customers” (patients) and
- speed up the pace of medical innovation in their disease areas
- Partner with community-based organizations to offer trial matching services to underrepresented and underserved patient populations and seek incremental philanthropic funding for these health equity efforts based on the idea that success with patient advocacy organizations (above) expands the scope (no. of diseases covered) of health equity impact
- Consider integrating CTMatch technology and the breastcancertrials.org group more fully into the broader organization, particularly using its work with underserved patient trial outreach as an early instantiation of a broader push into health equity work
Key Conclusions
There is broad and intense funder interest in advancing greater equity in clinical trials. Provided Quantum Leap can deliver results (“move the needle” not solve the entire problem), major funders are deeply interested, particularly pharmaceutical philanthropic foundations.
Quantum Leap will need to hire business development talent to work with both patient advocacy and community-based groups as well as foundation fundraising.
Quantum Leap would benefit greatly from adding “lived experience” and diversity to its efforts here; many funders all but demand it, and research proves it generally leads to better decision-making.