Discovery Life Sciences, Mindpeak Partnership, Streamlining Communications, Rare Disease Referrals

Discovery Life Sciences, Mindpeak Partnership, Streamlining Communications, Rare Disease Referrals

By Clinical Research Staff

April 28, 2026 | Discovery Life Sciences and Mindpeak enter a partnership; Cenevo has launched the Labguru Customer Portal; myTomorrows and Rare Disease Research team up; and more.

Merck and Google Cloud announced a partnership to enhance Merck's digital backbone as an AI-enabled enterprise. This multi-year investment, valued at up to $1 billion, will deploy an agentic platform across Merck's R&D manufacturing, commercial, and corporate functions—and includes Google Cloud engineers working alongside Merck teams to implement Google Cloud's most sophisticated AI, including Gemini Enterprise. Through this partnership, Merck will build advanced AI solutions on Google Cloud technology to drive new levels of scientific innovation and operational impact. Press release.

Eli Lilly announced the FDA approved Foundayo (orforglipron) for adults with obesity or overweight with weight-related medical problems. Foundayo will be available via LillyDirect, with prescriptions accepted immediately and shipping beginning April 6, followed shortly after by broad availability through U.S. retail pharmacies and telehealth providers. Supported by the rigorous ATTAIN clinical trial program, Foundayo was proven to help people lose weight and keep it off. Eli Lilly discussed GLP-1s during their presentation at January’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Press release.

Discovery Life Sciences and Mindpeak entered a partnership designed to address one of the most stubborn challenges in clinical trial development: inconsistent biomarker interpretation across pathologists. It contributes to variability in patient stratification and eroding confidence in critical go/no-go decisions. The companies will team up by integrating AI-enabled digital image analysis into pathology services for immunohistochemistry and multiplex immunofluorescence in global clinical trials. The collaboration aims to support biopharma R&D and clinical research by improving biomarker quantification and inter-reader concordance, which will help reduce variability, de-risk biomarker-driven trials, and strengthen confidence in critical development decisions. Press release.

myTomorrows and Rare Disease Research announced a partnership designed to improve how patients are identified and referred into rare disease clinical trials. RDR will use the myTomorrows platform to help referring physicians and specialist centers identify potentially relevant RDR trials and submit structured referrals directly to RDR site teams. The platform is intended to support preliminary matching against study criteria and improve the completeness and consistency of referral information before site-level review. Press release.

Ovation.io and PrecisionLife have reached an agreement to commercialize the outputs of PrecisionLife’s analysis of Ovation’s high quality GLP-1 receptor agonist dataset. The companies have identified novel quantitative markers for strong glycemic control (HbA1c) that are specific and different to those for weight loss (BMI) in a real-world population. PrecisionLife will reproduce, refine, and validate these findings in additional datasets provided by Ovation.io, including studies to confirm predictive performance for leading GLP-1 therapies, such as semaglutide and tirzepatide, against real-world patient outcomes across independent cohorts over the next six months. Press release.

Kayentis and RWS entered a partnership combining RWS’ rater training service with Kayentis’ eCOA platform. This coordinated approach reduces variability in clinician assessments, enabling improved quality and reliability of clinician-reported outcomes in clinical trials, notably in central nervous system studies. This collaboration focuses on one of the biggest challenges in neuroscience research: variability in clinician assessments, where even small inconsistencies in scoring or scale administration can affect endpoint reliability and the validity of trial results. Press release.

Cenevo has launched the Labguru Customer Portal. The portal streamlines client communications for contract research organizations (CROs), contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs), service labs, diagnostic labs, and analytical facilities, as well as many others. CROs and CDMOs operate in high-throughput, service-driven environments where speed, accuracy, and transparency are critical. Labguru allows CROs and CDMOs to centralize operational visibility across departments and projects, standardize workflows, and efficiently manage multiple client programs at scale. Press release.

Iterative Health and US Heart & Vascular (USHV) announced a strategic partnership to advance research through community-based innovation in cardiovascular care. USHV research sites will join Iterative Health’s global site network, which now spans over 100 sites across three continents. USHV clinical research sites will gain access to Iterative Health's centralized operational backbone, providing end-to-end support across clinical research operations, services, business development, technology innovation, and corporate functions. The strategic partnership reduces operational complexity and unlocks growth potential for USHV research sites while enabling all USHV physicians to expand access to cutting-edge therapies to the thousands of patients they serve annually. Press release.

Perceptive eClinical and Kayentis joined together in a strategic partnership to deliver a fully integrated best-of-breed eCOA–IRT offering for clinical trials. As trials become more complex, sites and study teams increasingly rely on multiple disconnected tools, leading to duplicate data entry, repetitive workflows, and avoidable reconciliation steps. The joint Perceptive eClinical–Kayentis solution reduces these pain points by integrating two core systems—IRT and eCOA—into a streamlined, interoperable workflow that helps improve efficiency, data quality, and overall user experience. Press release.