For CROs & Trial Sponsors

Accelerating the Alzheimer’s trial pipeline.

The high-fidelity gateway to early MCI cohorts.

Stop losing millions to 88% screen-fail rates. Acurist gives CROs the validated digital infrastructure to accurately triage, enrich, and secure progressive MCI cohorts — before the first PET scan.

Schedule a Meeting to Learn MoreCalculate Your ROI
Brief cognitive screens compared
ToolSens.Spec.
MCI Screen (Acurist)95%97%
MoCA74–84%60%
MMSE71%36%
Mini-Cog84%79%
Higher pre-screen accuracy means fewer wasted neuropsych referrals and shorter recruitment timelines. Source: Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 2007 · Trenkle, Shankle & Azen.
The Core Challenge

The anatomy of an AD trial bottleneck.

For clinical-operations teams, the recruitment funnel is a high-stakes obstacle course. Subjective scales flood the pipeline with false positives — enrolling stable, non-progressive individuals or patients whose impairment stems from reversible conditions. The result: millions wasted on premature Amyloid/Tau PET scans, neuroimaging, and fluid biomarkers for participants who should have been filtered out on day zero.

High screen-fail rates

Low-sensitivity tools push too many ineligible participants into expensive neuropsychological evaluation.

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Costly over-referrals

Each false positive consumes site capacity, study coordinator hours, and per-participant budget.

Delays in enrollment

Inefficient pre-screening lengthens recruitment cycles and pushes back read-out timelines.

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Inconsistent data quality

Variability in how brief screens are administered across sites adds noise to baseline cognitive measures.

The Acurist Edge

Why CROs choose the MCI Screen over MMSE and MoCA.

Four operational advantages that protect trial budget, timelines, and statistical power.

01
🎯

Solves the false-positive dilemma

Brief paper-and-pencil screens like MoCA carry specificity around 54–62% in primary care — meaning a meaningful share of healthy older adults can be flagged with possible MCI. Each false positive can mean a costly downstream workup (PET, CSF, neuropsych) the trial budget didn’t need.

  • MCI Screen specificity: 88–97%
  • Filter normal-aging participants before they consume biomarker capacity
  • Lower screen-fail cost across the recruitment funnel
02
📊

Demographic neutrality via automated normative scoring

Raw scores on MMSE/MoCA can be warped by education and age — highly educated participants can mask early symptoms (ceiling effect); under-educated participants can score low without true pathology. The MCI Screen compares performance against age- and education-matched peers using a peer-reviewed normative model.

  • Validated across 121,000+ participants in the US and Japan
  • Standardized data across multilingual, multi-site networks
  • Algorithm published in PNAS and J. Alzheimer’s Disease
03
📱

Streamlined decentralized pre-screening

Paper screens demand specialized training and a quiet clinical environment, limiting recruitment to traditional memory centers. The MCI Screen is a standardized, digital assessment that takes under 10 minutes and can be deployed across primary-care referral networks, telehealth visits, or community outreach.

  • Catch prodromal and early MCI during routine wellness visits
  • Wider recruitment net, less site burden
  • No specialist credentials to administer
04
📈

Protect trial power with true-progressor enrichment

Built on the CERAD Word List Memory subset, the MCI Screen evaluates memory, executive function, judgment, and language — outputting a probability of progressive MCI rather than a flat cutoff. Enrich cohorts with participants tracking toward clinical decline so disease-modifying therapeutics can demonstrate statistical efficacy.

  • Multi-domain composite, not a single score
  • Memory Performance Index (MPI) for longitudinal tracking
  • Tighter cohort = better statistical power
Ideal Use Cases

Built for the trials moving the field forward.

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Alzheimer’s & MCI therapeutic trials

💊

Prevention & risk-reduction studies

📱

Lifestyle & digital therapeutic interventions

🧪

Biomarker-driven cognitive stratification

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Longitudinal observational cohorts

What CRO Partners Receive

Everything your team needs to deploy the MCI Screen.

A standardized assessment package, hands-on operational support, and configurable data and compliance infrastructure.

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Standardized Assessment Package

  • Digital MCI Screen with automated scoring
  • Plain-language participant summaries
  • Clinician-ready reports for site investigators
  • Validated, peer-reviewed cognitive science
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Operational Support

  • Integration guidance for your existing workflow
  • Staff training modules
  • Recruitment workflow templates
  • Optional co-branded outreach materials
🔒

Data, Security & Compliance

  • Enterprise-grade security — encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access
  • HIPAA-aligned data handling and Business Associate Agreement available
  • Secure transmission to CRO or sponsor systems
  • Configurable data exports for analytics
  • Audit-ready documentation
Clinical Evidence

A clinically validated MCI assessment.

Four independent peer-reviewed studies. Validated across 121,000+ participants in the US and Japan. Published in PNAS, the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, and the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Review the clinical evidence →
MCI vs. Normal
97.3%
Overall accuracy
95%
Sensitivity — catching true MCI cases
88%
Specificity — correctly clearing normal participants
3+ Yrs
Predictive power before AD symptom onset
Mild Dementia vs. Normal
99%
Overall accuracy
96%
Sensitivity
99%
Specificity
121,000+
Participants validated across US & Japan
Interactive ROI Model

Model your trial’s recruitment ROI.

See what high-precision MCI pre-screening saves a cognitive trial — by filtering false positives before they consume expensive Amyloid/Tau PET and biomarker validation. Compare a traditional MoCA/MMSE funnel against the MCI Screen funnel for the same enrollment target.

Adjust screening assumptions

Drag any slider to model a different specificity scenario. Defaults are anchored to published literature — citations beside each control.

Current modelled assumptions vs. published literature
ScreenSens.Your spec.Published spec.
MCI Screen 95% 88–97%
MoCA 74–84% ~60% (primary care)
MMSE 71% ~81% (memory clinic)
Sensitivity is held at literature values — for the MoCA range, the upper bound (84%) is used. Specificity is what drives the screen-fail filter, so it’s what you adjust.
60%
Source: Davis et al., 2015 (Cochrane Database Syst Rev) — lower specificity in unselected primary-care populations. Higher figures (~87%) are reported in memory-clinic validation (Nasreddine et al., 2005).
36%
Source: Trenkle, Shankle & Azen, 2007 (J Alzheimer’s Dis) primary-care comparison — 36% specificity for MCI vs. normal. Higher figures (~81%) reported in memory-clinic settings (Mitchell 2009).
Pick one. The model compares the selected paper screener head-to-head against the MCI Screen. Switch to see how each would perform in your funnel.
90%
Source: Trenkle, Shankle & Azen, 2007 (J Alzheimer’s Dis); algorithm in Shankle et al., 2005 (PNAS). Published range 88–97%; default 90% chosen as a conservative midpoint.

Illustrative projection comparing recruitment-funnel cost with traditional brief screens versus the MCI Screen. Biomarker and screening cost bases are built into the model. Results depend on protocol design, indication, and site mix, and are not a guarantee of outcomes or a pricing proposal.

Projected recruitment impact
$7.4M
Net Recruitment Savings
11.3×
Value per $1 Invested
1,797
Wasted Biomarker Scans Avoided
65%
Lower Recruitment Cost
Your trial
88%
Source: Industry estimate for prodromal-MCI trials. The A4 prevention trial reported ~71% (Sperling et al., 2020, JAMA Neurology); prodromal-MCI trials commonly cite 80–90%.
Protocol add-ons optional

Get the full breakdown

See the side-by-side funnel comparison — referrals, biomarker scans, sunk cost, and total recruitment cost. We’ll email the detailed report to you.

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For Your Clinical Operations Team

Schedule a meeting with our partnerships team.

Tell us about your trial and we’ll set up a short, no-pressure conversation about how the MCI Screen fits your recruitment workflow, study design, and enrollment timeline — with a study-specific funnel analysis.

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Build a high-fidelity pipeline for your next protocol.

A short, no-pressure conversation about how the MCI Screen can fit your recruitment workflow, study design, and enrollment timeline — with reproducible endpoints and audit-ready documentation.

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