GlaxoSmithKline launches first foray into mobile app-based study

The Apple mobile app ResearchKit will get its first drug company challenge with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

The drug maker created an iOS application through the ResearchKit format for a rheumatoid arthritis study. The app will help make the study accessible for the 300 participants—they’ll spend three years recording their own physical feelings and emotions as the phone’s motion sensors records their mobility, according to Bloomberg.

This way of conducting a study is cheaper for researchers than some traditional studies, but the data reliability in its real-life practice is unknown.

This first study could inform whether or not similar studies go forward in the future. Hospitals and academic institutions have already based studies on the ResearchKit foundation, but this is the first foray into the app for a drug company. So far, GSK executives are optimistic about the convenience for participants, both in recruiting participants and getting them to fill in data points every day.

“It has the potential to greatly improve recruitment. One of the biggest challenges in clinical trials is that it’s hard to engage patients because they might have to take time off work, they often have to travel significant distances and then they’re subjected to a series of measures that can be invasive,” Kara Dennis, who is helping manage data for GSK during the study, told Bloomberg.

And smartphones are nearly ubiquitous, with iPhones taking up large portions of that market.

By making research as easy and accessible as possible for patients, we have the potential to disrupt the model for how we conduct research in the future and ultimately improve patient health,” GSK Vice President of Clinical Innovation Rob DiCicco told the Telegraph.

The challenge will be in determining data integrity and keeping participants interested enough to keep using the app, said DiCicco. The results from this first trial will help shape future similar studies for GSK and other companies.

The success or failure of the study could also be important for Apple, Yahoo pointed out. The company also launched its CareKit app this year, more evidence of its increased focus on healthcare technology. The app allows users to manage their own healthcare.

According to Bloomberg, Apple is creeping its way into healthcare in other ways, too. The tech giant is hiring healthcare experts and has been framing its devices more and more as a health-tracking tools.