Lilly has launched a new smartphone app to help healthcare professionals find clinical trials of cancer drugs for their patients.

The pharma company's free Clinical Trial Resource app is available for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry devices and will provide information on trials irrespective of their sponsor.

Anne White, senior director of portfolio management at Lilly Oncology, said: "Lilly Oncology created the Clinical Trial Resource mobile app to offer cancer care professionals an easy way to search for and identify details about all global oncology clinical trials - not just those sponsored by Lilly.

"The information will enable physicians to provide the most current study information - quickly - to patients who may be interested in participating in a clinical trial."

The app offers a range of features, including the ability to locate trials based on cancer type, country, state, drug, phase or title, and an event search for local congresses and other events.

The Clinical Trial Resource app allows users to contact Lilly Oncology for additional details on its trials and provides a third-party contact for the non-Lilly clinical trials.

The app joins an area of the mobile health app market that is slowly increasing up and where the most notable pharma launch to date has been the Cancer Trials app GlaxoSmithKline launched in 2010.

Meanwhile a range of other trial organisations have entered the space. Last year contract research organisation (CRO) PPD launched an iPad/iPhone app to help potential clinical research participants and investigators search for clinical trials across a range of therapeutic areas.

More recently the NHS' National Institute for Health Research released an app in December for patients, carers, clinicians, academics, researchers, pharmaceutical professionals and students interested in clinical trials registered in the UK.

The Clinical Trials Gateway app contains information about what health conditions are being investigated, what the trials are aiming to achieve, who can and cannot get involved, and the recruitment status of the trials. 

Meanwhile in the US the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a cancer-specific mobile app for oncologists, patients, and families to easily identify and share cancer clinical trials information.

Lilly's online cancer pipeline 

Alongside its new app Lilly has also launched a new website, LillyOncologyPipeline.com, to provide information about the cancer drugs it is working on and offers illustrations of the target pathway and, when available, video of the pipeline compound's method of action.

"With LillyOncologyPipeline.com, the healthcare professional will now have immediate access to detailed information on our diverse oncology pipeline," added White.

"We hope that this will foster not only greater awareness of our potential medicines, but also spark innovative collaborations that ultimately change the world of cancer care."

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