Pharmaceutical Product Development and Happy Life Tech (HLT) of China have signed an exclusive agreement to develop a distinctive service offering for the China drug-development market delivering data science-driven clinical trials and real-world evidence of drug products’ effectiveness, safety and value.

The strategic collaboration is designed to enhance global pharmaceutical companies’ access to China’s evolving drug development and post-marketing ecosystem to address unmet clinical needs in China, while enhancing research capabilities for the Chinese pharmaceutical industry in the global market.

HLT contributes an unparalleled ability to generate AI-enabled solutions and its growing network of prominent physicians and more than 100 leading hospitals in 22 Chinese provinces. Capitalizing on PPD’s global clinical research resources and China footprint, the collaboration intends to provide pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients with unsurpassed services in China, including clinical study protocol design, site selection, patient recruitment and real-world evidence.

“Our collaboration with HLT will provide PPD’s clients with exciting new opportunities in China,” said David Simmons, chairman and chief executive officer of PPD. “Our focus on sites with access to eligible patients is designed to speed patient recruitment at high-performing sites and to more effectively incorporate Chinese patients into global trials. We will help clients adapt study protocols to the China market, while helping sites enhance quality, drive performance and lead global multicenter trials. In addition, we will intelligently leverage real-world data in China to recruit patients with a high potential for participation in our clients’ studies and to generate real-world insights needed for market access and product uptake.”

Rujing Gong, founder of HLT, said, “I am very excited about this collaboration. We believe a joint effort between PPD and HLT will empower our clients with unique solutions, significantly increase trial efficiency, reduce costs and ultimately benefit patients in China and around the world. We’ll also help the Chinese pharma industry be more competitive in the global market through a better registration strategy. China’s research capability has been developing quickly and will play an important role in the global clinical development market in the future. We have strong interest in being involved and in driving the process.”

The companies’ exclusive collaboration focuses on data-driven feasibility, patient recruitment and real-world evidence offerings for both global and China-based pharmaceutical and biotech companies.