AstraZeneca uncaps clinical trial spinout Evinova

Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca uncapped Evinova, a health tech business offering other drug companies paid access to its digital clinical trial tools.

Why it matters: Clinical trials are dominated by costly and slow-moving studies run largely by elite medical centers, and dozens of startups have emerged with ideas on how to diversify and streamline them.

Details: Major contract research organizations (CROs) Parexel and Fortrea have already inked agreements with Evinova to offer its tools to their customers.

How it works: Evinova is offering CROs and other pharma companies access to an app that allows them to conduct traditional and decentralized medical research, including collecting remote data and conducting virtual visits, per a release.

• Parent company AstraZeneca funded the startup, which will sit inside the AstraZeneca group.
• Evinova's app is available in 80 languages.

What they're saying: "The future of medicine development can be accelerated with digital solutions," AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said in the release, adding that he believed Evinova's scientific expertise would provide sizable opportunities to boost patient care while reducing carbon emissions.

State of play: Venture dollars have been flowing into clinical trials enablement startups, including those aimed at facilitating more diverse and remote research. For example...

• Macro Trials and Altis Labs, two startups that charge pharmaceutical companies to use their AI-powered streamlining technologies, in June raised a collective $12 million in seedfunding.
• Topography Health last January landed $21.5 million in Series A funding to engage community physicians with a plug-and-play research platform.
• Reify Health last April pulled in $220 million in Series D fundingat a $4.8 billion valuation for its cloud-based research software.