Lilly is to use data collected in an everyday setting as part of a collaboration with the T1D Exchange to research new ways to improve care for people with type 1 diabetes.
The five-year alliance will see the two partners collect real-world data, rather than data from clinical trials, in order to gain insights into the experience of people with type 1 diabetes when it comes to using existing treatments and devices.
Lilly’s partnership with the T1D Exchange will include its US network of diabetes stakeholders, which through its membership of the patient research platform Unitio, includes a clinic registry of more than 26,000 people with type 1 diabetes across 70 clinics and a sample repository that stores patient biosamples.
Perhaps most significantly given the growing importance of digital communities for pharma, the T1D Exchange also includes Glu, an 8,000-member patient and caregiver online community for type 1 diabetes, which is designed to accelerate research by providing a space for discussions, surveys, studies, and engagement with information.
This network will be utilised during the first project in this collaboration, which is intended to assess user experience associated with insulin pumps and multiple daily injections.
Lilly will use the T1D Exchange registries to develop and send a survey to healthcare professional in the community, following up with a study of clinic registry participants to help understand how insulin pumps are used and how multiple daily injections occur in real-world practice. This data will then be shared publicly, according to Lilly.
Dr Dara Schuster, a medical fellow at Lilly Diabetes, explained: “Having access to the resources of T1D Exchange to bolster our understanding of the needs of people with type 1 diabetes, their caregivers and healthcare providers will help us continue our mission of addressing the global diabetes burden through the development of innovative medicines and programmes.”
The partnership with Lilly adds to the T1D Exchanges’ existing relationships with pharma companies, which include a collaboration with Sanofi to gain insight into understanding the needs of children and young people with type 1 diabetes.
Both Lilly and Sanofi are among the leading diabetes companies in the world, as seen in PMLiVE’s Top Pharma List of the top 15 pharma companies by metabolic sales.