U.K. contractor DrugDev has purchased software provider CFS Clinical with plans to merge the company's trial management program with its own investigator network, creating a cost-cutting solution for drug developers.
Neither party is disclosing financial terms, but the deal brings CFS' software for managing payments in clinical trials into DrugDev's interactive platform that unites more than 80,000 clinical trial doctors in 93 countries. CFS dominates the trial financial management space, DrugDev said, booking more than $800 million in investigator payments since its inception.
In the short term, the combination will allow DrugDev to offer a standardized offering that allows sponsors to find, recruit and pay their investigators, the company said. In the long run, the buyout moves DrugDev one step closer to offering virtual clinical trials, under which doctors and drug developers interact solely through cloud-based platforms, reducing the cost of research by eliminating labor-intensive processes.
"This is just part of the solution to control the spiraling costs of clinical trials," DrugDev CEO Ibraheem Mahmood said in a statement. "By adding CFS' study startup and Investigator payment solutions to the portfolio, we extend our capabilities to implement standards, and so continue our journey of putting the investigator back at the heart of the clinical trial process."
DrugDev said the deal gives it a solution to two major investigator complaints: They want better visibility for new trial opportunities, and they want to avoid unnecessary delays tied to payments they are owed. With CFS' services in tow, DrugDev believes it has an offering that can address these concerns and speed up the drug development process.
- read the statement