EDC Provider Shakedown

It was raised in a recent posting on the eClinical Opinion that we may be seeing the demise of some of the mid tier EDC solution providers.

The market is adjusting. In the past, many solution providers were able to get by through providing point solutions with products capable of scaling from the 1-10 study ranges. However, today the market has matured. Many sponsor companies are looking at systems that are capable of effectively supporting 100's of concurrent studies. The technical requirements differ.

Unless a software product is architected to work with large volumes of study building and execution perspectives, they will not work as scale up occurs.

Sledgehammer approaches have been used in the past - throwing hardware at the problem, switching to a chunkier database or web-enabling a legacy technologies. Often such solutions are just papering over the cracks. The problems lie deep in the design of the product.

Sponsor companies evaluating EDC technologies should drill into the systems to determine if architecturally they are capable of supporting the proposed volumes.

Electronic Data Capture Systems

This could claim to be one of the most obscure blogs on the Internet. It is purely to discuss technology surrounding the development and use of Electronic Data Capture systems in Clinical Trials.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of technologies and ownership, there is a need for anonymity.

It should be noted though that any opinions shared here are purely my own, and do not necessarily reflect the position held by the company I work for now, or companies I have worked for in the past.