Merck KGaA to Adopt Evinova AI-Native Platform to Accelerate Clinical R&D

Editor’s Take: Not only can AI capabilities accelerate timelines, but they can also reduce costs and improve data quality.

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, agreed to a multi-year strategic collaboration to adopt the end-to-end capabilities of Evinova’s AI-Native platform. Evinova, a global leader in AI-native clinical development technology, is a separate health tech company within the AstraZeneca group.

Together, Evinova and Merck KGaA say they want to “revolutionize” the next wave of AI-driven R&D innovation.

Details of Evinova AI Platform

Evinova’s platform covers all modules of study design, document authoring, and downstream automation. According to the company, these capabilities can collectively significantly reduce time, costs, and operational bottlenecks in clinical development.

Evinova says its suite of AI-native capabilities is continuously advancing. Under the terms of this agreement, Merck KGaA now gains priority access to these services.

The end-to-end platform is the key attraction, but automatic conversion with models into USDM 4.0 is also among the offerings.

Document authoring takes a multi-agentic approach; this reduces risk of protocol amendments, improving quality versus history. It also incorporates the latest regulatory guidelines and patient experience, and accelerates clinical documentation workflows.

Finally, a holistic intelligence layer integrates operational benchmarks across participating pharmaceutical companies, to inform smarter design decisions.

In general, Evinova’s platform promises to accelerate timelines, reduce costs, improve data quality, and enhance patient experiences for better outcomes.

Merck KGaA’s Role as Partner

Evinova President Cristina Duran called Merck KGaA an “exceptional partner” with respect to Evinova’s goals.

“Merck KGaA’s forward thinking and bold approach to transforming clinical development end-to-end raises the bar for the industry,” Duran said. “Together, we will push the next frontier of clinical development to accelerate the delivery of high-quality medicines to patients.”

Some of Evinova’s outcomes to date have been published in Nature Medicine. Among these are a 60% improvement in patient experience, 6-month acceleration in trial delivery, and 32% reduction in costs.