Samsung Electronics will use biometric data collected by Galaxy Watch in clinical trials for new drug development.
As the pharmaceutical and biotech industry shifts from hospital visit–centric clinical trials to decentralized clinical trials (DCT) that use everyday-life data, global big tech competition around wearables is expanding into medical research.
On the 24th, Samsung Electronics said it signed a partnership with German digital clinical trial company Alcedis and will use Galaxy Watch biometric data in clinical trials for new drug development.
Alcedis is a German digital clinical company founded in 1992. It has conducted clinical trials for more than 30 years in a range of areas including oncology, cardiovascular, and neurological diseases, and is currently under the global healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) company Huma Group.
The two companies will collaborate to develop clinical endpoints that can evaluate the efficacy and safety of new drugs using biometric data such as heart rate, activity, and sleep information measured by Galaxy Watch.
They also plan to pursue cooperation across the entire study process, including data collection and participant monitoring, clinical trial operations, and regulatory response.
Clinical trials using wearables are characterized by the ability to secure data in patients' everyday lives that used to be collected only in limited fashion at hospitals.
While reducing the burden of patient visits, they can secure long-term continuous data, which is seen as improving clinical trial efficiency.
Samsung Electronics is also pushing to build a Connected Care ecosystem that links health data generated by wearables to medical services.
Last year, it acquired Jell's, a platform corporations that consolidations digital healthcare solutions with a network of more than 500 hospitals in the United States.
Based on this, the plan is to link health data collected from Galaxy devices with hospitals' electronic health record (EHR) systems to build a prevention-focused, personalized care environment.
It is also expanding joint research with medical institutions. With Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), affiliated with Harvard Medical School in the United States, it is conducting research on muscle loss in patients taking GLP-1 class obesity drugs, and with Stanford University in the United States, it is studying sleep apnea detection technology.
With Chung-Ang University Gwangmyeong Hospital, it is conducting research to predict neurally mediated syncope.
The decentralized clinical trial market is growing rapidly. Market research firm BCC Research projected that the global DCT market will expand from $8.8 billion (about 13.523 trillion won) in 2024 to $18.8 billion (about 28.89 trillion won) in 2030. The compound annual growth rate from 2025 to 2030 is 13.7%.
Regulatory changes are also influencing market expansion. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finalized guidelines for operating remote clinical trials in Sep. 2024, laying the institutional groundwork for using wearables and remote monitoring technologies.
Accordingly, global pharmaceutical companies are expanding research that uses data collected in patients' everyday lives, moving away from hospital-centric clinical trials.
Huma, the parent corporations of Alcedis, is likewise expanding its business in the global DCT market based on remote patient monitoring and a digital clinical platform.
Choi Jong-min, executive director of the Health Development Group in the MX Division at Samsung Electronics, said, "Clinical research is evolving toward deeper understanding of human health through collaboration among diverse partners with technology and scientific expertise," and added, "We have supported researchers through various development tools such as the Samsung Health SDK, and through this collaboration, we will ensure that data accumulated in daily life leads to innovation for new drug development research and for patients."
Hanno Hertlein, CEO of Alcedis, said, "The future of clinical research depends on how effectively we use meaningful health data generated in everyday life beyond traditional clinical settings," and added, "By combining the capabilities of both companies with a scalable infrastructure, we will improve research efficiency and accelerate patient-centered healthcare innovation."