Can we use the new Intel Product that Captures, Printed Text to Digital Text and then Reads Text- in clinical trials

Intel Corp.’s Digital Health Group has introduced a handheld product to convert printed text to digital text, then read it aloud to the user.

The Intel Reader is designed for persons with dyslexia, other learning disabilities or impaired vision, according to the Santa Clara, Calif.-based vendor. The reader includes a high-resolution camera to point and shoot text, and a processor to convert and read the text.

The reader can be used with a Portable Capture Station that eases capturing large amounts of data from a chapter or entire book. More information is available at intel.com/healthcare/reader/index.htm.

Boy this is much better than Kindle or Google Reader.  I had a completely different thought while reading about the product. If it was cheaper Clinical Research companies in Developing countries can use it in paper trials.

Ofcourse it is not designed with that purpose. The idea started with Ben Foss, director of access technology for Intel, who was identified with dyslexia in elementary school.

The Intel Reader is easy to use. Just point, shoot, and listen to quickly access printed text such as schoolwork, work material, or menus on the spot. The Intel Reader does not require sight to operate. Easy-to-locate buttons, audio and visual navigation, and straightforward menus make it easy to locate the functions you need. For people with low vision, the large screen display can zoom in and out and text size can easily be adjusted.

Data Management and Integration for the Future of Clinical Trials webcast

Upcoming Webcast: Data Management and Integration for the Future of Clinical Trials

Attend this interactive webcast presented by Applied Clinical Trials and Oracle Health Sciences featuring speaker Tom O’Leary, Senior Vice President, Data Management, ICON Clinical Research and Claire Castaings, Vice President Worldwide Director, Clinical Data Management Sanofi-Aventis. This session examines the use of the latest electronic data capture technology to efficiently integrate critical data sources.

Webcast Details

Speakers:
Tom O’Leary, Senior Vice President, Data Management, ICON Clinical Research
Claire Castaings, Vice President Worldwide Director, Clinical Data Management, Sanofi-Aventis

Live webcast date and time: November 10, 2009 at 8:00 AM PT/11:00 AM EST

To register for this event, click here.

The integration of data from the various technologies employed in clinical trials continues to increase in complexity. The typical clinical trial today integrates data from IVR, EDC, ePRO & Laboratories, to name but a few. Achieving a seamless integration of data greatly improves the speed at which data is available, enhances the quality and consistency of that data, and reduces costs. The pharmaceutical industry continues to strive for this efficiency while reducing the cost of getting drugs to market. Outsourcing drug development to CRO’s using the latest technology platforms is a key strategy in this quest. This webcast will explore how a leading pharmaceutical company and ICON used the latest electronic data capture technology to efficiently integrate all critical data sources, ultimately enabling the continuous assessment of patient data.

In this webcast you will learn how to:

• Have a deeper understanding of ways in which technologies can interface to integrate data
• Understand how time savings were achieved in the provision of data to monitoring committees
• Realize the benefits of working together where activities are outsourced and how the latest technologies can derive benefit

Register today for this thought-leading event!

How should you safely outsource pharmacovigilance to an Indian contract research organization?

Published in hte Indian Journal of Pharmacology. Edwards B. How should you safely outsource pharmacovigilance to an Indian contract research organization?. Indian J Pharmacol 2008;40:24-7

The articles focus on different types of CRO that operate in India and the concerns western companies should address before deciding to oursource the trial to Indian companies.

exerpts from the article

The heterogeneous concept of a Contract Research Organization (CRO) in India is that, a CRO might refer to independent locally owned CROs, an affiliate of a multinational CRO, one owned by a larger non-healthcare companies (such as an IT company wanting to move into pharmaceuticals), one owned by a healthcare or pharmaceutical company or a hybrid of a CRO and a site management organization. In addition, there are significant differences in costs and capabilities. Only a small number have experience in multinational Phase II and III studies sponsored by US or EU companies. Costs for CRO services can vary by as much as fivefold. For instance, the cost per monitoring visit can vary between $400 and $2500 per visit. Employee turnover can be as high as 60% (a healthy number in a Western CRO might be approximately 10-20%); 95% or more of investigators meet recruitment goals. However, although for US studies query rate are typically 10-20%, the rate rarely exceeds 5%. Thus, there is no cohesive business strategy to develop the Indian pharmaceutical sector with enormous amount of variations in existing CROs.

Sponsors should be aware that high rates of staff attrition and turnover study monitors may well impact a CROs’ safety capability. Previously training in pharmacovigilance and GCP is a major issue with very few training courses in India, resulting in not enough GCP and pharmacovigilance trained personnel. The consequence of these factors may lead to the more experienced sites becoming overloaded with projects and the better investigators conducting proportionately more trials. In addition, the more attractive sites for recruitment may indicate that medical investigators already have a high patient load for their normal clinical practice, squeezing time for research subjects. This point is critical because of the challenge of informed consent from illiterate patients as described in a BBC documentary. Thus, it is critical the CRO industry rises to the Quality challenge by building quality as an integral part of all processes. This indicates that recognizing the costs of quality control and quality assurance checks are essential, not just an overhead.

Multi National Pharma sell their Captive Clinical Research Facilities in India

MNC pharma companies to control 8% of $20bn worth Indian medicines market by 2015. According to a FICCI study more than 60% of trials in India is conducted by Global Big Pharma companies.  Indian Clinical Research arena is often compared to the Indian outsourcing success and hte wave of BPO industry success in India.

Multi national companies that launched their own captive BPO centres India have now sold them to Indian vendors,  that trend has grown, the likes of , GE, Citi Bank, all have sold their captive centres to Indian vendors

In curent wave or Indian CRO success in clinical research is compared to such trends. There may be a possiblity that the likes of Novartis, Pfizer, Lilly, Sanofi, GSK can sell their captive centres that focus on clinical research to Indian CRO’s.

But for the time being such ambitions by Indian CRO will remain as pipe dream untill they will move  away from “I can do it cheaper and faster than in west”- sales pitch. And gains credibility and resources to offer value added service to Global Pharma

For example Indian CRO can offer backend integration with Indian Medicinal chemistry experts and companies to provide drug re-licencing /re-positioning services. They need to think about offering these value add services. Following are some of the areas Indian CRO’s can look

1. what happens to failed Clinical Trial and how can Indian CRO help Global Pharma to Drug repositioning/Re-profiling of drugs

2. How can Indian CRO provide Pharmacogenomics  services with clinical trial

3. How can Indian CRO help in personalized medicine initiatives

4. Even though it serves the vested interests of Global Pharma how can Indian CRO help in Extending patents of existing drugs with ANDA and NDDS

5. Pharmacovigilance and Post -Market Surveillance for Risk Assesement and Risk Mitigation

6. Data Warehousing and Data Mining by integrating clinical and non clinical data from multiple studies

7. Drug Life cycle management services

8. Generating Key opinion leaders and KOL platform by using data from multiple trials and resources

9. Premarketing Clinical Drug Safety and Risk Assessment

10. Designing Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoecconomics stratgey and Aiding Evidence based pharmacotherapy