Quintiles, Cerner team up to ease late-phase burden

The growing burden of post-marketing research requirements is the target of a new collaboration between US-based biopharmaceutical services company Quintiles and Cerner, a global supplier of healthcare solutions and electronic health record technology.

Under the agreement, Quintiles will use the Cerner Discovere Late Phase platform to offer biopharmaceutical sponsors an integrated solution for patient registries, post-approval and late-phase studies, observational trials, and studies to support Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies.

According to the new partners, the web-based Cerner Discovere Late Phase platform enables researchers to:

• Gain a clearer picture of how a product is performing in the ‘real-world’ setting, by integrating data from consenting study participants and site researchers
• Accelerate study start-up and implementation through intuitive data-collection workflow and the ability to pre-populate electronic case report forms

• Improve data quality by reducing transcription errors

Dr Dipti Amin, Quintiles’ senior vice president of drug safety and medical affairs, said the tie-up with Cerner “marries our clinical study design and operations expertise with their technical depth and understanding of clinical workflows”.

Clinical research website

Quintiles has also launched a new website at www.clinicalresearch.com that offers “easy-to-use, comprehensive information for those who have little or no understanding of clinical research and the value it brings to healthcare”.

Visitors to the website who may consider participating in clinical research can identify ongoing or future trials relevant to their condition and location. There is also supporting information including videos about real-life patient experiences and news of recent studies.

According to Chris Cabell, head of global access to patients at Quintiles, research shows that 75% of the general public say they have little or no knowledge of clinical research and how to take part in it. “We want to fundamentally change that statistic,” he commented.