Health and beauty giant Boots will use data gathered through its Advantage Card loyalty scheme to enable companies to seek new treatments for illnesses.
Boots is close to striking agreements with research bodies and healthcare companies that offer treatments to people to test the effectiveness of drugs outside a laboratory, The Sunday Times reported.
Around 50% of all transactions at Boots are made through the Advantage programme, which has almost 17 million active members. The data gathered provides the retailer with data that could be used to identify and recruit people to take part in clinical trials.
Cancer Research, for instance, is seeking long-term sufferers of heartburn – a symptom of oesophageal cancer − for a trial designed to develop new ways of diagnosing the disease earlier.
Boots is in discussions about identifying people who have been purchasing antacids for six months and offering them the opportunity to participate in the project with their consent.
Boots director of healthcare Jamie Kerruish said: “We believe a shift to a healthcare system focused on prevention of disease, not just treatment, is critically important for the NHS of the future and we are keen to play a role.”
Boots is owned by US giant Walgreens, which recently ended plans potentially to sell the UK retailer, which has been performing well. The Sunday Times reported that Boots store revamps are now a key focus.
Boots UK retail director Anthony Hemmerdinger said: “We would accept that not all our stores are at the standard we want them to be but we have an aspiration to have a great Boots store in every town and no stores that we are ashamed of.”
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