Instem has bought a ticket to play a larger role in the market for early-stage clinical trials. The provider of IT solutions has acquired Logos Technologies, which provides electronic data-capture (EDC) software for pharma, biotech and CRO companies.
As drug developers abandon paper for pixels, Logos' "Alphadas" software products include a number of tools such as EDC, electronic patient reporting (ePRO), and CTMS that target the early stage market. The mid- and late-stage trials market for EDC is dominated by Oracle ($ORCL)/Phase Forward, Medidata Solutions ($MDSO), Perceptive Informatics/Parexel and others. Yet Instem appears to see an opening for growth in the early-stage segment of the market.
Instem and London-based Logos did not reveal financial details of the acquisition deal in a press release.
Logos, which has employees in the U.S. and U.K., has designed its software to reduce the time required for clinical trials. Trials have been notoriously costly and time-consuming, and IT companies have looked to give drug developers advantages with their software. Pharma companies have been using EDC software in general for more than a decade, and now the race is on to offer enhancements and complementary software tools to drive efficiency in trials.
"We are delighted that the talented team at Logos will be joining the Instem group," Instem's CEO Phil Reason said in a statement," and we look forward to working together to provide valuable automation tools that will enable our clients to bring new products to market quickly and cost effectively.
With the buyout deal from Instem, which is listed as ($INS) on the London exchange, plans call for Logos to offer a software-as-a-service option for its products, hoping to appeal to early-stage units with support of its software over the web.
- here's the release