Breaking down barriers and building a more inclusive tomorrow, together.
Breaking down barriers and building a more inclusive tomorrow, together.
Diversity in Clinical Trials
Our Mission and Vision
Mission: to design our clinical trials to be inclusive and more representative of the populations who are most likely to benefit from our medicines.
Vision: we envision a future where inclusivity is at the forefront of clinical trial design. We want everyone who wants to participate in clinical research to have an equitable opportunity.
Why D&I is clinical trials is important
Diversity in clinical trials is vital for advancing health equity and understanding how medicines work for different groups of people. However, according to FDA reporting from 2022, whites comprised the majority of patients enrolled in most of the pivotal trials supporting approval of all 37 novel therapies, followed by Asians and Blacks1.
Diversity in clinical trials means that the individuals included on a clinical trial match the disease burden within a given geography.
Diversity in clinical trials is a global challenge and exist along the many dimensions of diversity including gender, age, ability, racial and ethnic minorities, sex and gender minorities, geography, socioeconomic status, and so forth. At Sanofi, to solve a global problem, we are developing strategies at the local level based on regional requirements.
Our Six Strategic Pillars
There are many reasons why an individual may not participate in a clinical trial, including mistrust of the healthcare system, stigma, lack of access to information, financial and time constrains and fear. Structural barriers like socioeconomic status, narrow eligibility criteria and forms of unconscious bias may also exclude patients from participating. To address those barriers, we are developing local solutions tailored to each geography´s specific needs which are reinforced by our six strategic pillars:
- Awareness and engagement: internal/external engagement strategy that includes community organizations, partnerships and thought leaders.
- Inclusive protocol design: leveraging data, artificial intelligence and machine learning to ensure our protocol are inclusive.
- Site and Investigator selection: establish a framework to ensure our site selection and investigator selection strategy are aligned with improved diverse population.
- Patient and site support: offering patient and site support to minimize barriers.
- Training: internal and external training focused on health equity, diversity and inclusion in clinical trials
- Measurements: continuously evaluating our performance and metrics.
Global Goals
100%
of Sanofi studies inclusive by design
100%
of Sanofi studies informed by patient insights
Our Impact
Embedding Cultural Sensitivity Into Care
At Sanofi, we’ve embedded cultural sensitivity into our DNA. It is a core value that shapes our approach to compassionate care. Through these stories, we invite all who care for and communicate with patients to become more aware of their biases and preconceived notions. The goal of the Cultural Sensitivity Video Series is to inspire all members of the clinical research ecosystem to consider how they interact with study patients and the potential impact on the patient experience and health outcomes.
Embedding Cultural Sensitivity into Care: Continued
Reflections
Many underrepresented communities may not even know there are underrepresented in research. We therefore want to literally show the community the demographics of what major clinical trials look like. We want them to walk away understanding that they are underrepresented in research and how that may lead to drugs being developed that may not work or be safe for them. This will be achieved through art installations in local public parks across various cities in the United States. Reflections will engage with underrepresented communities to promote awareness, demonstrate a commitment to improving health equity, inspire and build advocacy, and address barriers to participation.
Beacon of Hope
The Beacon of Hope initiative is a collaboration with Novartis and other industry peers to co-create effective, measurable solutions for health equity. We are reimaging the model by which we partner with community-facing sites – focused on early investment and addressing access barriers long before we initiate a clinical trial. Our approach is to invest in resources, technology, and infrastructure to make it easier for the sites to conduct research. As partners on the Beacon of Hope consortium, we are establishing Clinical Trial Centers of Excellence at Morehouse School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, and Howard University College of Medicine.
RE@DI
Sanofi is currently one of the members of the RE@DI – Research Europe & Diversity Inclusion, which is a strong public-private, interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder partnership, with key expertise in clinical trials, engagement strategies for underserved and underrepresented population, digital platform development, training and capability building initiatives, effective communication and dissemination, to rally a sustainable system to change and make clinical trials accessible to the diverse patient population in Europe.
Sanofi Community Alliance Network
The Sanofi Community Alliance Network is a coalition of clinical research sites, local community organizations, trusted messengers, key opinion leaders, and vendors that partner with Sanofi to increase clinical trial awareness and education through-boots-on-the-ground community engagement; and to advance the representation of diverse patients on our clinical trials.
Effective community engagement has the potential to accelerate patient recruitment, improve site operational excellence and performance, and attract diverse patient populations to clinical trials. An integrated and intentional approach to activate sponsor, site, patient, and community will help to meet the needs of patients, by providing necessary support to sites and underserved communities.
Patient Stor(ies)
Video series produced for TriNetx by BBC StoryWorks Commercial featuring our Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion in Clinical Trials, Monique Adams, Ph.D, stressing the importance of designing inclusive clinical studies and how Sanofi is leveraging technology and harnessing data
We think global and act local. We are actively listening to site and patient feedback and pushing the boundaries of technology to achieve our diversity and inclusion goals, while providing transparency in everything we do.
Monique Adams, PhD
Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion in Clinical Trials
Explore more
Clinical Trials
Find a clinical trial
Interview with Dietmar Berger, CMO
References
- US Food & Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Drug Trials Snapshots Report 2022