Emerald Clinics Ltd (ASX:EMD) continued to make progress against its IPO goals, finishing its June 2020 quarter with record appointment volumes and the expansion of its Real World Evidence technology platform beyond cannabinoids.
The healthcare technology and services company has also joined in the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, taking the lead as program manager for the development of a National Clinical Data and Analytical Platform (CDAP) of COVID-19 patient cases to collect clinical data from confirmed COVID-19 patients, from a variety of sources, in close to real-time.
Emerald Clinics chief executive officer Michael Winlo said: “Our strong end to 2020 is pleasing, given the challenges posed by COVID-19 to both patients and our clients. We continue to make progress against our IPO goals, see increasing numbers of patients and new referrals each month and also invest in new and innovative patient monitoring technologies, that both assists patients and increases the value of our data assets.
“We are also being recognised for our thought-leadership in the Real World Evidence (RWE) space through earning key roles in a number of COVID-related projects.
“We look forward to continued growth, expanding our data deals and further developing our Openly offering in the year ahead.”
Expansion of digital health platform Openly
Emerald signed new agreements to enhance its current data capture technology platform and support the launch of a new digital health and clinical monitoring service, Openly, formerly known as Sentinel Plus.
It has secured an agreement with artificial intelligence technology provider Binah.ai to incorporate its world-leading smartphone technology, enabling the collection of contactless vital signs, into Emerald’s RWE platform.
The enhanced platform will allow Emerald to incorporate vital signs alongside other clinical and symptom data already collected, through Emerald’s existing RWE platform.
This platform increases the depth of clinical evidence captured from Emerald’s patients and, when validated, could support companies, universities, governments and other large populations to screen and monitor the health of their personnel remotely, as communities re-open internationally.
The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) functionality also allows the monitoring system to learn and adapt the screening and care pathway capabilities of the Openly system.
Emerald is targeting organisations in Australia and the US for implementation of Openly, where transmission of COVID-19 remains a challenge to safety and productivity.
In addition, the company had also been engaged by Linear Clinical Research to support the remote evaluation of more than 150 volunteer participants over a two-year period for a Phase 1 COVID-19 vaccine study.
Program manager for CDAP COVID-19 response
In May, Emerald Clinics was appointed program manager for the development of a CDAP, a partnership between several Australian state health bodies, the Federal Government and universities.
Data collected are analysed to form predictive models that can support point-of-care decision making by clinicians across likely disease progressions as well as treatment options for each patient.
Emerald Clinics is leading the program management across the entire project including coordinating the data integration efforts across multiple health services and the analytical model design.
This initial work order will deliver revenue of $100,000 within 12 months.
The Emerald platform will be managed in close association with frontline clinicians across participating institutions, as well as use state and territory resources and digital capabilities.
The CDAP project focuses on the following goals:
- Data capture: To quickly and efficiently capture diagnostic and treatment data of COVID-19 patients across the Australian healthcare system;
- Real-time clinical decision support: To assist clinicians treating or supporting COVID-19 patients;
- Supporting new clinical trials: To quickly implement clinical trials with the best information and analytics to improve treatment allocations to trial patients; and
- Long-term follow-up of patients: To allow for continued monitoring and treatment of those diagnosed with, or recovering from, COVID-19 in the longer term
Clinical appointments and referrals
Emerald Clinics said despite the challenges of COVID-19, monthly patient appointments continued to grow across its network.
In addition to engaging with patients over the phone or video conference, the Emerald telehealth service can integrate remote patient health monitoring tools, patient medical records, medication management and other data gathering tools, that provide a much richer and more useful suite of information for the patient and the caregiver.
The service is available for all consultations, while still allowing Emerald to gather key real-world data from its patients.
Financial position
As of end June 2020, Emerald Clinics had $3.7 million in cash.
During the quarter, it received $240,000 as an advance against its accrued R&D Tax Credit rebate under the facility with Radium Capital.