Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim selected Medidata’s Clinical Cloud platform to manage all of its global drug development programs - including all the trial-related work done by the company’s CROs – late last month, and will commence a phased rollout this year.
Medidata’s president and co-founder Glen de Vries told Outsourcing-Pharma that “Boehringer Ingelheim is transitioning from a competitor’s products,” but was not at liberty to divulge what solutions the pharma firm used previously.
But - he continued - the selection of Medidata as a strategic technology partner is a trend among pharma and biotech firms, and he expects even more to turn to his firm.
“A number of the largest and most successful companies in the life sciences industry are making the decision to become Medidata platform customers,” he said.
““We are confident that, like Boehringer Ingelheim, more and more pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies will continue to turn to Medidata as their strategic partner and use our platform of industry-leading solutions to help overcome those challenges.”
Decision to switch
“Like most things, change isn’t always easy. Many of these organizations are making decisions that are going to impact how they use technology for the next decade or longer, and such decisions can take time.
“Often times, legacy, entrenched technology is involved, and making the shift to something new requires alignment on all the process changes and decisions that need to be made in advance.”
Over 90% of the top 25 global pharmaceutical companies are already on Medidata’s books, while the firm is also working with 14 out of the 15 top biotechs, according to de Vries.
Meanwhile, the firm boasts a large number of contract research organisations (CROs) as clients, and INC Research – for example – is dependent on the company for nearly all its technology needs, including its operational clinical trial management system (CTMS) and its electronic data capture.
“Once life sciences organizations make the shift and become Medidata customers, they plan on working with us and using our platform for decades to come,” he told us. “Overcoming challenges around the complexity, speed and cost of conducting clinical trials -- pre and post approval -- will remain central to improving returns for life sciences companies and driving innovation for patients.”