Trial automators skip summer break

After completing its acquisition of the interactive voice and web response services business of Covance last week, Phase Forward has now completed two acquisitions, launched a product and issued two new software releases in the past four months.

The acquisition of Covance not only adds clinical response capabilities to Phase Forward's store of clinical trial offerings, it also yielded a multi-year deal to provide its InForm electronic data capture solution and Clarix interactive response technology application as preferred solutions to Covance clients.

In April, Phase Forward acquired Waban Software, a maker of software for automation and compliance of clinical data analysis and reporting, stretching the Phase Forward offerings from study setup through data analysis and submission. The company also updated its InForm product for electronic data capture in clinical trials, and issued release 3.0 of WebSDM, a tool to help the FDA validate and review submission data in CDISC Study Data Tabulation Model (SDTM) format. And it unveiled Empirica Study, a solution to help researchers detect safety issues during clinical development.

Meanwhile, its competition fortified its presence in Asia. Medidata announced last week that Sumisho Computer Systems has become the first IT systems integrator to join Medidata's ASPire to Win program for CROs. The deal lets Tokyo-based SCS expand its clinical solution offerings via support of the Medidata Rave EDC and clinical data management solution.

- here's the Phase Forward announcement
- see the Medidata release