American Academy of Ophthalmology, Verana Health roll out Verana Research Network, an IRIS Registry Initiative

Established by the AAO in 2014, the IRIS Registry is one of the largest specialty society clinical data registries in all of medicine. Verana Health is the Academy's exclusive end-to-end data curation and analytics partner for the IRIS Registry.

Verana Health and the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) todaytoday announced the Verana Research Network, an IRIS Registry (Intelligent Research in Sight) initiative intended to help advance data-driven clinical research and care.

According to a news release the network consists of academic medical centers (AMCs) and ophthalmology practices joining together to utilize IRIS Registry data and Verana Health capabilities to help improve patients' access to, and streamline healthcare providers' execution of clinical trials.

Founding participating practices and institutions are experienced in conducting clinical trials, committed to advancing data-driven clinical research, and regarded by the Academy as experts in their field. The Verana Research Network includes ten founding sites and is now inviting additional practices across the IRIS Registry to participate.

"The American Academy of Ophthalmology continues to look for ways to extend the value of the IRIS Registry to advance patient care and outcomes," Rahul Khurana, MD, a clinical researcher and practicing ophthalmologist at Northern California Retina Vitreous Associates, a Verana Research Network founding site, said in the news release. "With the Verana Research Network, the Academy and Verana Health are helping clinical trial sites run data-driven trials that can potentially bring therapeutic innovations to patients faster."

Established by the AAO in 2014, the IRIS Registry is one of the largest specialty society clinical data registries in all of medicine. Verana Health is the Academy's exclusive end-to-end data curation and analytics partner for the IRIS Registry. This enables Verana Health to securely help practices participating in the IRIS Registry to use data-driven approaches to help recruit patients likely to meet clinical trials requirements.

The Verana Research Network helps participating institutions and practices:

1. Increase access to clinical trials

• Practices in the Academy-backed network have the opportunity to be exposed to more sponsors through clinical research leveraging the IRIS Registry and a site selection platform to be rolled out in 2023.
• Verana Health also alerts practices when they may have patient profiles suitable for select Verana Health-supported Phase IV/real-world evidence (RWE) trials.

2. Accelerate trial recruitment

• Participating practices have access to the secure, cloud-based Verana Trial Connect (VTC) platform that helps securely provide investigators and physicians a curated list of their own patients who may qualify for clinical trials.
• Sites may also broaden trial enrollment by receiving referrals for potential patients from other local practices that participate in the IRIS Registry.

3. Advance ophthalmic clinical research

• Practices in the Verana Research Network can be a part of innovative clinical research that benefits from data-driven approaches.
• The network could also help expose sites to future opportunities, such as prospective evidence generation that incorporates patient-reported outcomes to determine how well a treatment is working.

American Academy of Ophthalmology CEO Stephen D. McLeod, MD, pointed out in the news release that AAO members are always seeking ways to provide the most up-to-date and the highest quality care to their patients and this joint initiative between the Academy and Verana Health is another example of how the IRIS Registry supports innovations that will improve this care.

“The Verana Research Network will help speed access for ophthalmology patients to participate in clinical trials that develop impactful and effective therapies to help protect patients' sight,” he said in the news release.

Moreover, according to the AAO, as part of the Verana Research Network and an IRIS Registry benefit, practices can also opt-in to a program that allows clinical trial sponsors to see certain practices that may be a suitable site or referral practices for trials. This site selection capability will be available to sponsors in 2023.

Verana Health CEO Sujay Jadhav pointed out in the release that his company’s vision is to bring together practices and data in a trusted, secure fashion, built on the cornerstone of quality, curated, de-identified real-world data from its specialty society partners.

“The Verana Research Network—and our partnership with the American Academy of Ophthalmology—is helping advance ophthalmic research and accelerate treatments for patients,” Jadhav said in the release.