Walgreens, BARDA form decentralized clinical trials partnership

Walgreens and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, or ASPR, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, announced a strategic partnership to increase innovation in decentralized clinical trials as part of the Decentralized Clinical Operations for Healthcare and Research, or D-COHRe, program. The program is designed to strengthen U.S. decentralized clinical research capabilities to support development of FDA-regulated products, enhance clinical innovation to execute more efficient and relevant clinical research and evaluate other medical countermeasures in real world environments that may be used in a public health emergency. The partnership will utilize Walgreens’s clinical trial ecosystem, which has proven effective in making clinical trials more accessible and representative of the U.S. population and has reached more than five million patients to potentially recruit into clinical trials since its launch in 2022. Walgreens is committed to making decentralized clinical research models more efficient and accessible to the U.S. population during their routine healthcare journey and during public health emergencies.