Health data fuel biomedical innovation. Data-driven patient participation—that is, patient contribution of their biospecimens, self-reported or wearable data, health record data, and other information—is a way to help advance medical research, improve care, and increase patients’ engagement with their health. However, this comes with an increased need to build public trust and update the current policy and regulatory environment surrounding the collection and use of data.

FasterCures' work explores the use of ethical and transparent data practices that preserve patient privacy while accelerating and enabling research collaboration.

FasterCures is dedicated to promoting collaboration between the public and private sectors to enhance the infrastructure for inclusive clinical research in the US. To meet this need, we are leading ENRICH-CT, a multistakeholder group comprising business, government, and nonprofit leaders.

ENRICH-CT serves as a precompetitive initiative to share best practices, support collective action on common challenges, and build an ecosystem of excellence that sustains the workforce, partnerships, resourcing, and technology needed to effectively conduct research closer to communities.

Download the ENRICH-CT One-Sheet 

While the response to the COVID-19 pandemic exposed many of the fault lines in the biomedical innovation ecosystem that have slowed progress for decades, it also illustrated we are capable of innovating in ways we perhaps did not think possible. FasterCures wants to ensure the lessons of this crisis are not lost—not only for combatting future infectious disease outbreaks but also for conducting every other aspect of biomedical research and development.

COVID-19 revealed in stark terms the price to be paid for the lack of a comprehensive community-based research system that can generate evidence to answer a broad range of critical research questions, whether in the context of sponsor-driven product development trials, comparative effectiveness studies, or a fast-moving public health emergency. FasterCures aims to identify actions needed by key stakeholders to realize the potential of community-based research infrastructure and build a coordinated ecosystem of excellence to address future public health emergencies and prevalent health problems equitably.