Kayentis raises €7m for its digital trial engagement platform

French tech company Kayentis has raised €7 million in private funding that will be invested in its digital platform for clinical trials.

The Grenoble-based company operates in the electronic Clinical Outcome Assessment (eCOA) market, which covers areas like patient and clinician reported outcomes, automatic remote testing, and patient diaries through a combination of web and mobile tools.

The worldwide eCOA market is expected to more than triple in value worth to around $2.6 billion in 2027, according to market research firm Data Bridge, and is one of the fastest growing digital patient engagement tools used in clinical studies today with annual increases of more than 15% predicted.

The adoption of eCOA is being driven by a desire to engage more closely with patients by the pharma industry, as well as greater use of decentralised and virtual trials that don’t require patients to visit clinical sites. It can also increase the quality of study data and help meet regulatory requirements.

The latest financing – equivalent to around $8.3 million – was led by Kayentis’ existing investors Extens and LBO France, with French national investment bank Bpifrance also contributing.

Kayentis chief executive Guillaume Juge said the cash injection will help boost “innovation and operational capacity” for its Clin'form3 eCOA platform, but also fund an expansion into new areas such as online consultations, electronic consent forms, and the use of wearable devices.

The drive will “support the trend towards virtual, decentralised and remote trials, where patient-facing digital technologies are increasingly playing an important role", he added.

Clin'form3 will have new functions added to support post-COVID ‘new normal’ and decentralised clinical trials, according to Kayentis. It also plans to boost its presence in the US market with new hires at its Boston office, and expand in Asia where it currently has a unit in Japan.

The platform has already shown its value this year in helping biopharma companies, investigator sites and patients mitigate the disruptions of the pandemic on clinical trials, according to the company.

“We are reinvesting today so that the company attains the top ranks in this global market through an enlarged product offering and a strengthened commercial presence across Asia and the Americas,” commented Cédric Berger, partner at Extens, which has invested in the company since 2015.