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Quick tags
- Site:
Tekton Research
- Sponsor:
UCB Biopharma SRL
- Indication:
Psoriatic Arthritis, Axial Spondyloarthritis
- Specialty:
Rheumatology
- Type:
Drug (Biologic)
- EHR:
Practice Fusion
Trial Description
The UCB 128708 study (NCT07290036) is a dual-cohort trial evaluating bimekizumab in participants with active psoriatic arthritis (PSA) and axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). The study is sponsored by UCB Biopharma SRL. Tekton Research's enrollment target is 5 patients across the two cohorts.
Bimekizumab is a monoclonal antibody that dual-inhibits IL-17A and IL-17F. UCB protocols are known for their complexity. The 128708 protocol includes 42 distinct eligibility criteria spanning diagnosis confirmation, disease activity scores, prior biologic exposure limits, imaging requirements, and extensive exclusion criteria across both cohorts.
Clinic Description
Tekton Research is a multi-site clinical research network operating across multiple U.S. locations. Their Fort Collins, Colorado site is one of the participating locations. Tekton’s Site Manager responsible for day-to-day patient screening and chart review.
Challenge
When UCB's bimekizumab protocol arrived at Tekton Research, the team knew immediately they wanted HealthKey on it.
"When we started talking about the UCB, our mind immediately went to let's see if we can get HealthKey to help."
Senior Director - Patient Engagement, Tekton Research
The UCB protocol was complex. It had 42 criteria spanning two separate disease cohorts: psoriatic arthritis and axial spondyloarthritis. Each cohort had its own inclusion and exclusion requirements. Tekton's operations lead, who had worked at UCB doing feasibility for these exact studies, knew what they were signing up for.
The stakes were straightforward. Manually reviewing 650 charts against 42 criteria across two cohorts to find 5 qualifying patients would take an estimated 195 hours, nearly 25 full working days. For a site already running multiple trials, that timeline meant months before the first qualified patient, if they could staff it at all.
Solution
Tekton activated HealthKey on the UCB bimekizumab trial in late March 2026. HealthKey connected to the site's Practice Fusion EHR system and ingested 254,155 medical records across 650 patients, an average of 391 clinical data points per patient.
HealthKey translated the trial's 42 inclusion and exclusion criteria into automated evaluation logic and ran 4,771 individual criteria evaluations across the patient population. The criteria covered both the PSA and axSpA cohorts, including diagnosis confirmation, disease activity requirements, prior biologic exposure limits, and extensive safety exclusions.
The protocol demanded a high level of clinical reasoning from the AI: distinguishing between psoriatic arthritis subtypes, evaluating axial disease activity measures, and cross-referencing medication histories against UCB's specific biologic exposure limits.
The Site Manager’s workflow stayed simple: HealthKey pre-screens the population, she reviews the qualified patients, messages the provider through Practice Fusion EHR for clinical confirmation, and then hands off for patient outreach.
The challenge was finding 5 needles in 650 haystacks, each haystack requiring evaluation against 42 criteria. HealthKey processed the full population in parallel.
The Results
650 patients and 254,155 medical records processed in 11 days.
HealthKey screened Tekton's full rheumatology population against all 42 eligibility criteria within 11 days of trial activation. Manually reviewing this volume would have taken approximately 195 hours, or 24 full working days, at the standard rate of 20 minutes per patient chart. HealthKey reduced the coordinator review time to approximately 2 minutes per patient.
14 patients met all 42 eligibility criteria. 17 currently in review.
Of 650 patients screened, 14 met every inclusion and exclusion criterion across both cohorts, with 17 additional patients currently in review. The enrollment target is 5 patients. The qualified pipeline is 2.8x the enrollment target, meaning Tekton has depth to absorb screen failures and still hit their numbers.
Screening completed at a fraction of the cost of manual review.
HealthKey processed 4,771 criteria evaluations across the full patient population. For context, 195 hours of manual coordinator time represents weeks of work for a single screener. HealthKey completed the same scope in 11 days, freeing the Site Manager and her team to focus on patient outreach and enrollment rather than chart review.
Looking Ahead
With 42 criteria across two cohorts in psoriatic arthritis and axial spondyloarthritis, Tekton demonstrated that automated screening scales to the most demanding protocols.
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