For drugmakers used to developing pharmaceuticals in the lab, the management of clinical trials can be a daunting and complex process, often involving contracts with multiple contract research organisations (CROs) in multiple countries.
As a result obtaining the most up to date information on everything from local staff costs to supplier expenses can be a challenge, making it difficult for sponsors to budget for programmes and find the best prices, which ultimately increases costs.
ClearTrial says its clinical trial operations (CTO) software can solve these problems and, according to spokesman Mike Lange, make “the planning, forecasting, and tracking of clinical project and financial performance faster and more accurate.”
Lange told Outsourcing-pharma the software integrates industry databases with ClearTrial’s knowledge of the sector and relationships with CROs to provide sponsors with the most up to date information for contract talks.
He said that being current is key explaining that: “Because ClearTrial is built … on algorithms, rules and ratios between cost drivers, algorithms can be adjusted over time to reflect current day practices, changes in the regulatory environment and other methods that impact the time required to perform clinical tasks.”
Lange also claimed that the software is already used by three of the top five pharma companies and six of the top ten biotech firms with Massachsetts, US-based Cubist Pharmaceuticals one of the most recent to sign up.
In a press statement accompanying Cubist’s purchase of the software, company CMO Santosh Vetticaden explained that: “New clinical outsouring models and alternatives that are in practice have created much more complexity in our trial planning.
“We are looking forward to utilising the capabilities of ClearTrial to allow us to quickly compare cost scenarios for different approaches fully outsourced, outsourced by function, independent contractors and studies performed in whole or in part by Cubist personnel.”
ClearTrial CEO Mike Soenen said that other customers were equally enthusiastic, explaining that “One recently [said] they had shortened their typical two and one-half month contract negotiation period to just over two weeks.”
Soenen also said that another customer, a mid-sized biotech, “saved 20 per cent of the bid cost of a study through more informed negotiation with their CRO.”