Principle LTC, operator of 45 nursing homes in the Southeast, is building on its successful role testing a key drug for COVID-19 prevention and treatment to facilitate trials of a new Alzheimer drug.
The goal is to bring staff, resident families and residents without an Alzheimer’s diagnosis into the clinical trial process, improve access to the treatment and build the nursing homes’ reputations in the communities they serve.
“The nursing home industry has always been seen as the bottom of the food chain for healthcare,” Principle President and CEO Lynn M. Hood told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News last week. “But we have day-to-day interactions with the community, our patients, their families, emergency medical workers (and) physicians. … Who is better served to go into an underserved community — and many of our nursing homes are either in remote locations or inner city locations — who is better to be able to spread the message of what clinical research can bring to the community?”
Principle is again partnering with Care Access, the decentralized trial company that brought Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibodies to Principle patients during the pandemic. Care Access’s successful work treating thousands of long-term care patients, including many at Principle sites, is believed to have sped up the drug’s emergency use authorization.
“We wanted to replicate that for additional studies,” said Tyler E. Miller, MD, PhD, the company’s director of patient access. “Can we use that same model for other indications then, like Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular disease or diabetes? Can we get these medications to more people in clinical studies so, if successful, they can get them out to more people in the general population across the country?”
Clinical trials have long been criticized for excluding some patient groups, including minorities and seniors, who may have trouble accessing traditional study sites due to distance, lack of transportation or even mistrust of medical institutions.
Care Access teams bring the trial to patients in their own communities. In the case of Principle’s Alzheimer’s project, they’ll start with one site at a North Carolina nursing home to deliver a medication that is believed to remove brain plaques associated with the development of the disease. Participants are identified as at-risk for developing Alzheimer’s and cleared for participation by testing for the presence of a specific biomarker.
The drug is not suited for residents already diagnosed with severe cognitive decline or Alzheimer’s, meaning many residents won’t qualify for trial participation. But Principle leaders see broader reasons to get involved, including the ability to offer trial access to resident’s adult children as young as age 55, providing a new community resource that helps build trust in the brand, and supporting staff who might have a family history and their own fears about dementia.
COO Joylin Nation recounted a conversation with one employee whose family has been impacted by Alzheimer’s and has several relatives in nursing homes because of the disease. When Nation mentioned the upcoming study, that worker asked her to “sign her up.”
“Studies like these … absolutely, no doubt, will play a very caring, forward-thinking role and provide possible treatment for our employees,” Nation said. “This is a big reason we’re in this business.”
Hood said it’s a smart way to care for staff, especially in light of current workforce challenges. She said Principle hopes to expand the Alzheimer’s trial after an initial test period at one location.
