CHICAGO -- Cmed Group has added ePRO firepower to its board. Neil Rotherham, co-founder of ClinPhone, will guide tech strategy for the e-clinical solutions provider, maker of the Timaeus and Timaeus Hotspot trial management platforms.
In an interview at the annual DIA show, Rotherman said that ePRO technology's time has come. It eliminates some barriers to entry of electronic reporting devices for patients and can potentially aid patient retention and study protocol compliance.
"Paper was never truly effective" as a reporting medium for patients, he says. "And PDA-type devices were not effective."
But drug sponsors and CROs are now making ePRO vendor selections. "That's a sign of acceptance," he said. "I think it's going to go exponential now."
He likens the pending ePRO market acceptance he foresees to that of EDC technology. "In the late 1980s, people were talking about it. By the late 1990s the technology was available. But only in the last five years has it become accepted," he said. EPRO has now entered the acceptance stage.
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