The Clinical Technologies business unit of the Northern Ireland-based Almac Group has formed an integrated patient-management alliance with Exco InTouch, a UK company specialising in patient recruitment, retention, compliance and electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO) services.
The alliance combines technologies and processes from both companies into an integrated offering that promises to alleviate administrative burdens on site personnel while easing the patient’s journey through the clinical trial process “using familiar technologies that are both popular and ubiquitous, including phone, web, text messages and e-mail”.
The joint platform includes Exco’s patient retention and compliance solutions as well as Almac’s Interactive Voice and Web Response (IXRS) technology. Clinical trial sponsors will be able to help participants stay on course by sending them messages in their native language such as reminders to attend clinics, fill out patient diaries, take medication, return unused drugs or attend appointments after fasting.
As clinical trials become increasingly more complex and global, applying cost-effective technologies to drive compliance and enhance clinical trial site productivity “will serve a vital role in the drug development process”, Almac and Exco said.
“Rarely do you have an opportunity to employ a solution that will help all trial participants, the sponsor, the site, and the patient,” commented Tim Davis, chief executive officer of Exco InTouch.
Headquartered in Craigavon, Nothern Ireland, the Almac Group provides a range of drug research, development and contract manufacturing services from biomarker discovery through to formulation development, Interactive Voice and Web Response systems and commercial-scale production.
Exco InTouch is based in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. It offers interactive patient communication solutions, using both internet and cell phone technology, to improve patient recruitment, retention and compliance in clinical trials as well as collecting ePRO and patient diary data.
