[account_shop_links]
Clinical technology is a fast-growing, highly competitive arena with hundreds of vendors racing to win the prize: working with sponsors to facilitate faster clinical trials and ultimately deliver lifesaving therapeutics. Clinical technologies including IRT (interactive response technology), CTMS (clinical trial management systems), and EDC (electronic data capture) are under constant pressure to keep up with evolving needs in clinical trials, including supporting decentralized trials (DCTs) and developing the next generation of software. To gain more insight, Industry Standard Research has recently conducted four studies to understand the pharmaceutical industry’s experiences with clinical technology providers.
One critical component of market research on clinical technology solutions is understanding which capabilities or attributes are the most critical to sponsor organizations when selecting a technology provider. “Considerations When Select-ing An IRT Provider” presents some key findings from our IRT Benchmarking & Market Dynamics (4th edition) study. Although cost is traditionally a relevant factor in selecting technology providers, only 17% of sponsor and CRO respondents listed Low cost as a “Top 5” priority when selecting an IRT vendor. On the other hand, the study reveals that Integration with EDC, ePRO, CTMS, and oth-er data systems is a very important factor, among others discussed in our first article.
Today’s clinical trials require sophisticated data management systems, and sponsors rely on CTMS vendors to provide industry-specific platforms. Ideally, sponsors would choose a single vendor for all their CTMS needs, but usually, they work with multiple vendors. “Why Are Sponsor Organizations Using More Than One CTMS Solution?” draws from our CTMS Benchmarking & Market Dynamics (3rd edition) report. Sponsors dislike the complexities of juggling multiple vendors, but most have found they are unable to meet all of their trials’ needs with a single solution.
The next article focuses on respondent predictions of how EDC solutions will evolve over the next two years. In “The Future of EDC Systems,” based on EDC Benchmarking and Market Dynamics (5th edition), our respondents anticipate that EDC providers will advance solutions that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Our survey’s respondents reported two major innovations they wish to see from EDCs regarding their functionality in decentralized trials: improved data integration with other clinical technologies and direct data capture. Data integration across multiple platforms can slow down studies when disparate systems don’t communicate or data must be manually cleaned. Sponsors want dashboards with real-time reporting and automated integrations to ease clinical site staff’s workload and accelerate the drug development process.
Finally, what do smartwatches have to do with clinical trials? According to our Decentralized Clinical Trials Market Outlook study, quite a lot. Smart-watches, activity trackers, wearables, and smart-phone apps collect a plethora of data points on users’ health and lifestyle every day. With the rise of DCTs, these data collection devices are promising for clinical trials. Likewise, the emergence of electronic clinical outcome assessments (eCOA), including patient reported outcome (ePRO) systems, opens even more possibilities for DCTs. In “Advancing Clinical Research with Advanced Technology,” we present the technologies sponsors currently use and how they anticipate using them in the next few years.
The arena is crowded, but the potential winners are many. Clinical technology providers that utilize market research to improve their offerings will gain an edge over their competitors. Sponsors and CROs can use market research to identify better partners for their clinical trials, ultimately improving data quality and facilitating faster clinical trials. We invite you to consider our research as your personal trainer, providing the insider information you need to win the race.
View Resource