Verily and Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation expand strategic partnership to establish novel registry of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)

The partnership’s first-of-its-kind participant-centered model will be critical in advancing clinical IBD research 

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA, and NEW YORK, NY, October 25, 2022 — Verily, an Alphabet company focused on precision health, and the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to finding cures for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and to improving the quality of life of children and adults affected by these diseases, announced today an expanded strategic partnership. The collaboration will focus on building a longitudinal registry to accelerate research in Crohn’s disease and in ulcerative colitis, collectively known as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

The registry will establish an infrastructure designed to rapidly answer clinical research questions in IBD, to accelerate treatment development and ultimately improve quality of life for people living with these diseases.  It will build on the Foundation’s existing patient communities, including patient research communities, and builds on a pilot effort from the partners, which launched in 2021.

“With this partnership, we aim to establish a model for a new kind of disease registry, one that is participant-focused, tech-enabled, and generates high-quality longitudinal data to power clinical research,” said Amy Abernethy, MD, PhD, President of Clinical Studies Platforms at Verily. “Through this work, we will generate the data and evidence needed to better understand the causes of the disease and to answer critical illness and treatment questions more efficiently than ever before.”

The registry will capture data directly from patients at time periods in their disease journeys to add depth and context to information collected in a clinical setting. Building a holistic longitudinal record of individuals’ health experiences will help unlock answers to high-impact clinical research questions. Importantly, key features such as symptom and quality of life tracking will help researchers better understand treatment effect and value, which is critical for addressing chronic diseases like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Industry and academic researchers will be able to partner on the design of prospective studies and access registry data for observational studies, which will be made available through Verily’s clinical research suite and the Foundation’s existing data platform, IBD Plexus.

“To spur future innovative IBD research, it will be critical to centralize high-quality patient data that is both comprehensive and easily accessible for researchers. Our collaborative disease registry with Verily will become a best-in-class experience for people living with IBD, who will contribute their information, and for researchers, who will explore the data to advance our understanding of treatments and how they can improve the quality of life for patients,” said Caren Heller, MD, MBA, Chief Scientific Officer at the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation. “The new model provides a uniquely holistic view of the IBD experience, creating larger and more complete longitudinal data sets and accelerating recruitment of participants for clinical research studies.”

The Foundation and Verily bring deep experience with direct-to-patient registry creation. IBD Partners, sponsored by the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, is a web-based partnership of over 15,000 patients with IBD. Verily’s Project Baseline Community Study currently includes over 600,000 participants across a number of therapeutic areas.

Millions of people in the United States have been diagnosed with IBD, affecting nearly 1 in 100 Americans. CDC data has shown that adults with IBD are more likely to have other chronic conditions than those without the condition. IBD can cause painful and debilitating symptoms and life-threatening complications, presenting a significant burden for patients, and this partnership aims to accelerate research to advance treatment and potential cures of the disease.

About Verily 

Verily is a subsidiary of Alphabet that is using a data-driven, people-first approach to change the way people manage their health and the way healthcare is delivered. Launched from Google X in 2015, Verily’s purpose is to bring the promise of precision health to everyone, every day. Verily is focused on generating and activating data from a wide variety of sources, including clinical, social, behavioral and the real world, to arrive at the best solutions for a person based on a comprehensive view of the evidence. Verily uses its recognized expertise and capabilities in technology, data science and healthcare to enable the entire healthcare ecosystem to drive better health outcomes. For more information, please visit verily.com.

About the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation

The Crohn's & Colitis Foundation is the leading non-profit organization focused on both research and patient support for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with the mission of curing Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, and of improving the quality of life of the millions of Americans living with IBD.  The Foundation’s work is dramatically accelerating the research process through investment in research initiatives, while also providing extensive educational and support resources for patients and their families, medical professionals, and the public. For more information, visit crohnscolitisfoundation.org, call 888-694-8872, or email info@crohnscolitisfoundation.org.