Greenphire Teams Ask Ernst & Young to Shed Light on Sunshine Act

09-Jul-2013 - Last updated on 10-Jul-2013 at 17:08 GMT

Ernst & Young (E&Y) analysts will try to illuminate the Sunshine Act for Greenphire's customers in the third collaboration the trial payment technology firm has signed in as many weeks.

The new partnership will give drug industry users of Greenphire's eClinicalGPS - an investigator, site and vendor payment system - access to E&Y’s consulting, IP and regulatory compliance team.

Sam Whitaker, Greenphire CEO, told Outsourcing-pharma.com that: “This is about building an entirely new product based on the research & expertise of E&Y and the payment technology expertise of Greenphire.

He explained that in addition to the US and its Sunshine Act “There are over 75 countries with complex regulatory requirements related to payment disclosures. Greenphire is working with E&Y to turn their expertise in this area into a new technology product.”

This as yet unnamed technology is intended as a software as a service (SaaS) solution for pharmaceutical companies looking to track all transactions across all operations.

Teaming with E&Y fits with what VP of product management Kyle Cunningham told Outsourcing-pharma.com in May about rising level of demand for regulatory expertise among the contract research organisations (CROs) that Greenphire works with.

Deals, deals, deals

The E&Y deal also follows hot on the heels of other agreements with Oracle – which will initially focus on integrating Greenphire’s payment tech with the latter’s electronic data capture (EDC) system – and IMS Health - which will see the firms share data to assist clients’ trial budgeting efforts.

And, although each agreement has a different focus, the rational for each is the same according to Whitaker.

“Greenphire is choosing to partner with all three companies because it seeks to build greater efficiency for its clients and to continue to automate traditionally manual processes.

“Clinical payments touch many aspects of the clinical trial process, from early stage planning of trials all the way to execution of the trial. This means that integrations with industry-leading technologies benefits clients by sharing data throughout all aspects of the trial.”

Buyout potential?

We also asked – given the scale and global clout of its new partners – whether Greenphire is on the lookout for a potential suitor. And as this stage, the answer is no.

“Greenphire is still in the process of building & growing the market for clinical payment technologies and generating innovative new ways to increase efficiency and add value for clients.

“Although, we would never rule out future possibilities, our current goal is simply to drive value for our clients and continue to challenge inefficient, manual processes in the industry.”