Cherry picking best functionalities is key, Bioclinca CEO tells OSP
Last week the firm set out its investment plans following a glowing Q2 report with service revenues up 12.8 per cent to $19.1m from $16.9m last year, largely due to an increased demand for its eClinical offering. In a conference call with investors, CEO Mark Weinstein said during the rest of 2012 a $9m chunk would be pumped back into its electronic management systems for trials.
Speaking exclusively to Outsourcing-pharma.com, Weinstein went into more detail, explaining that investments will go towards adapting electronic systems to meet industry needs.
He said rather than being focused on one of Bioclinica's technologies - which includes EDC (electronic data capture), IWR (interactive web response) and CTMS (clinical trial management system) the firm's development efforts will focus on combining the best functionalities from all of them.
“(The next big development is) to start looking at systems that are functionally driven, by what functions a person needs to perform,” Weinstein said.
“Another way to think about it is that the primary system for capturing clinical data related to clinical trials (currently called an EDC system) will be a combination of functionality included in today’s EDC, IWR and CTMS. BioClinica is poised to redefine how trials are managed and to liberate clinical trial data in order to make faster and better decisions.”
He added that customers are in agreement with the firm’s “vision for the future,” and that the number of clients buying into the new ideas has been a driving factor behind this quarter’s success.
“While others stitch together their legacy applications and call it an “end to end” solution, we’ve made the investment to build the best platform,” he added.
Acquisitions on the cards?
According to president of eClinical Solutions Peter Benton, some of the growth and plans for change will be implemented through new system acquisitions.
He told us: “There are many facets of the clinical development process and we are always looking to be acquisitive for systems and services that would be additive to what we have today.”
However, he said the firm is in no hurry to shop for said systems and services, and that pieces will only be added if necessary.
“As we implement a truly unified clinical development platform there will definitely be pieces that we can add, but with that said, we believe we have the core components now and will continue to be focused on driving results for our customers,” he said. “It is a good situation to be in."
