At Epicured we are very proud of our growing life sciences business, which designs and develops nutrition solutions for clinical trials and patient support programs that complement therapy, improve adherence, and enhance health outcomes in real-world settings.
This week, we caught up with Patricia Bradley, our SVP of Life Sciences and Clinical Development Partnerships, to get a deeper look into how the business operates.
Q. Can you tell us about Epicured’s life sciences business?
A. Sure! At Epicured, we support pharmaceutical development from early clinical research through in-market patient programs. The focus stays on therapies where nutrition directly impacts drug performance, patient experience, and clinical trial integrity. This work centers on controlled study design and patient support.
Q. Who does Epicured partner with?
A. Epicured partners with pharmaceutical sponsors, CROs, and research teams developing therapies where food and nutrition directly influence drug performance, safety, and trial integrity.
We work with sponsors across early and late clinical development, including Phase 1, 2 and 3 trials, and post approval patient support programs. Our focus is on programs where nutrition functions as a controllable variable rather than background noise.
Key segments include:
- Pharmaceutical and biotech companies developing oral small molecules, biologics, and combination therapies where meal composition, timing, affects PK, PD, or safety outcomes
- Immunology and oncology programs where diet variability influences inflammation, immune response, tolerability, and adherence
- Metabolic therapies where unmanaged nutrition increases GI adverse events, discontinuation, and real world drop off
- Rare disease programs where drug therapy requires precise coordination with a controlled diet to support efficacy and feasibility
- CROs and research sites recognizing food as a previously under-controlled variable and seeking standardized, protocol aligned nutrition to reduce dietary variability and trial noise.
Q. What sets Epicured’s life sciences offering apart from others in this field?
A. Epicured combines clinical precision with fresh, restaurant quality food. We design and produce customized meal solutions that meet strict protocol requirements while remaining practical for patients to follow day to day.
What sets Epicured apart:
- Ability to customize meals to precise nutritional specifications based on protocol needs
- Fresh, chef-prepared meals rather than shelf-stable or highly processed food
Epicured operates where food functions as part of the science.
Q. In what way does nutrition influence a clinical trial?
A. Nutrition directly influences how drugs are absorbed, tolerated, and sustained during a clinical trial. Meal composition and timing affect drug exposure, safety signals, and consistency across participants.
Nutrition also plays a practical role when therapies trigger gastrointestinal side effects. Many modern drugs cause nausea, diarrhea, constipation, bloating, or fatigue. The right foods, eaten at the right time, help ease symptoms, support hydration, and reduce treatment burden.
Q. Why has nutrition previously been overlooked by pharmaceutical companies?
A. At Epicured, we believe nutrition was overlooked because it lacked ownership. For decades, it sat outside clear responsibility across clinical, medical, and commercial teams. In drug development, the focus was placed on the molecule itself rather than the patient experience or real-world management. Food was considered background noise instead of a variable in the study, and research sites often improvised meals using cafeteria options, meal vouchers, or verbal instructions. Instead of controlling for dietary differences, variability in diet was simply accepted as the norm.
Q. Why does this fail in today’s environment?
A. That’s a great question. There’s growing recognition that both diet and the microbiome can influence how a drug works. Many drugs interact with the gut, trigger GI side effects, or rely on specific dosing conditions. In rare disease programs, diet and medication already require tight coordination. The same sensitivity applies to immunology and oncology studies, where inflammation, immune response, and tolerance influence results. When diet stays unmanaged, noise increases, side effects escalate, adherence drops, and the true effect of the molecule becomes harder to interpret. This makes controlling diet even more important.
Q. What impact have patient support programs had?
A. Patient support programs have a significant impact. First, they improve adherence and persistence. Many therapies today cause gastrointestinal side effects, which often lead patients to stop treatment early even when the drug is effective.
Targeted nutritional support helps manage these symptoms, reduces treatment burden, and supports patients in staying on therapy long enough for the medication to deliver its intended benefit.