# SBIR Phase I- Topic 410 - Cancer Clinical Trials Recruitment and Retention Tools for Participant Engagement.

> **NIH NIH N43** · MELAX TECHNOLOGIES, INC. · 2020 · $400,000

## Abstract

Many clinical trials fail to meet their accrual and retention goals, which leads to delays,
early termination, or inability to draw conclusions at trial completion due to loss of
statistical power. NCI wants to enhance clinical trials recruitment and retention by
developing tools that could enhance communication between participants and study staff.
In this Phase 1 tool development application we address the NCI interest in simplified
informed consent documents that enhance personal communication during the informed
consent process. In this Phase I proposal we leverage natural language processing technology and our
teams prior work on the Informed Consent Ontology (ICO) to improve the language in
consent documents related specifically to permissions granted by a research participant.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10265762
- **Project number:** 75N91020C00017-0-9999-1
- **Recipient organization:** MELAX TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Frank Manion
- **Activity code:** N43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $400,000
- **Award type:** —
- **Project period:** 2020-09-16 → 2021-06-15

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10265762

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10265762, SBIR Phase I- Topic 410 - Cancer Clinical Trials Recruitment and Retention Tools for Participant Engagement. (75N91020C00017-0-9999-1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-03 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10265762. Licensed CC0.

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