Transforming clinical trials for speed, efficiency, and patient impact

Large clinical trials have become excessively complex and expensive, with many trials costing over $1 billion. Fewer patients are enrolling in trials, and many trials fail due to bad design. This has profound global implications because the burden of common conditions is rising yet fewer treatments are being developed.

Cantata is designed to solve this problem. This revolutionary clinical trials management platform supports the full patient pathway, from recruiting or registering participants to screening, randomisation, and follow-up; treatment and participant supply logistics; safety; recording adverse events; monitoring; issue and quality management; and finally preparing data for analysis.

It is a unified platform that supports the end-to-end process of running a clinical trial, built on the Salesforce platform. Designed, built, and delivered by Slalom and Protas, Cantata brings together Protas’s decades of experience in designing and running large-scale, low-cost, high-quality trials and Slalom’s expertise in building innovative technology solutions with Salesforce.

Cantata leverages cutting-edge Salesforce technology and advanced data techniques to support the entire process of running a clinical trial. This is an unprecedented innovation in the industry.

The solution is built on one unified data model, in a manner that allows the platform to be tailored to the exact needs of a particular trial, with a sophisticated security model that allows trial staff to only see and do what they are meant to at any given time.

This approach means that Protas can provide integrated, streamlined, and guided processes and journeys for clinical trial site staff and patients. Individuals working at a testing site don’t have to constantly take the trial protocol out of the drawer because the system guides them through it.

The advantages are clear:

• Everything is online. Data gets entered into the system at the point of the event. No paper copies or transcripts are required.

• High-quality data is ensured through sophisticated validations and edit checks that reduce errors and guide site staff and participants every step of the way.

• A unified approach eliminates the need for rekeying between systems. 

Cantata is built on Salesforce Health Cloud, including Omnistudio, and uses Experience Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, and MuleSoft. The platform also leverages the Heroku cloud platform and CRM Analytics.

For the Slalom team, partnering with Protas on Cantata has been a rewarding journey of pushing the boundaries of technology to transform the future of clinical trials. “This large-scale programme required collaboration across many parts of Slalom, showcasing our team’s adaptability and commitment to meeting deadlines,” says Slalom senior director Matt Goulding. 

“Winning a Salesforce Partner Innovation Award for our work with Protas is a tremendous honor and a testament to our team’s dedication and expertise,” adds Simon Strudwick, Salesforce UKI co-lead for Slalom. “I’m incredibly proud of this work that will ultimately improve the health of millions worldwide.”

Cantata significantly reduces monitoring costs and the need for data queries. It also means that testing site costs are significantly lower as a large multinational trial can be controlled effectively by a relatively small clinical team at the centre.

Additionally, the platform improves patient safety. Data is entered in real time as events arise, and the same data is immediately accessible to highly trained central clinicians who can act on it without delay.

Overall, Cantata will reduce the cost of large trials tenfold. It accelerates recruitment and increases retention and the number of patients that adhere to the treatment till the end of the trial.

The first trial using the platform commenced in September 2024. It is estimated to be the world’s largest-ever pivotal phase 3 trial in kidney disease—a disease that affects 10% of the global population. In the United Kingdom, kidney disease costs the NHS £6.4 billion, approximately 3.2% of total NHS spending across the four nations of the UK. But this trial is only the beginning of delivering on Protas’s vision for Cantata to accelerate much-needed new and innovative treatments. 

“Ultimately, our aim is to change the way clinical trials are designed and run, and to make large-scale, low-cost, high-quality clinical trials possible,” says Blixen-Finecke. “Large-scale clinical trials are needed to find treatments for the common diseases that will eventually affect most of us. Our aim is for 100% of these trials to produce evidence that can inform clinical decision-making, helping to improve the lives of people worldwide.”