Technology and Clinical Trials

Wall Street Journal posted this interesting article about firms that conduct clinical trials and their use of technology. Apparently many firms, including contract research organizations, are still are not using electronic means for documentation, and instead much of the information is still being recorded using the simple pen and paper method. As stated, IDC ran a report that concluded that only 45% of phase I-III clinical trails conducted last year used EDC. That is up somewhat 69

in comparison to only 20% in 2003. It should be noted however that the number of firms using EDC is expected to increase to 80% by 2011. As quoted in this article, Bob Weiler, CEO of Phase forward remarked that:

Clinical trials have taken so long to go electronic because “if you go back two or three years, many doctors did not have broadband connections,”