Member Article

Newcastle software house double bid success

Newcastle-based clinical research software house, Datatrial is predicting it will double turnover and increase its headcount by 50 per cent by the end of 2020, after being successful in two bids to develop Advanced Therapies Treatment Centres in the UK.

Datatrial was part of both the Northern Alliance [involving NHS and Universities in the North of England and Scotland and supporting industry partners] and the Manchester based iMATCH bids to Innovate UK - both of which were successful.

Science and Universities Minister Sam Gyimah recently announced £70 million of government funding to speed up the development of new medicines, of which £21m was allocated to the creation of three Advanced Therapies Treatment Centres (ATTCs) in the UK.

Dr Emma Banks, CEO of Datatrial, explained: “We were delighted to be invited to be part of both the Northern Alliance and iMatch bids to develop ATTCs and thrilled that both bids to Innovate UK were successful.

“Being part of the ATTC is an important opportunity for our latest software launch Nucleus and will undoubtedly accelerate the development of our product road map, which means we will be able to continually improve the customer experience and long-term value of the product.

“Just as important for the development of Nucleus is our role working and collaborating with a broad stakeholder group and leading names in the industry as this will enhance our understanding of what the market needs and help us deliver more product innovations even earlier.

“Our success in two of only three national bids, will also be significant for Datatrial and result in our turnover increasing by c£1.5m by 2020. It will also mean an increase in headcount as we recruit more developers and support staff to promote product development and our involvement in the ATTCs.”

Datatrial develop software to improve the clinical research process and recently launched software ‘Nucleus’ in the US and Europe - the company’s first new product launch in nine years following on from its existing clinical trial software nowEDC.

Advanced Therapies are a new generation of treatments which use patients’ genes or cell-based products in the treatment of a variety of diseases. Although encouraging results have been reported, the technology is still complex, expensive and currently only available to small numbers of patients.

Advanced Therapy treatments have shown promising results in some diseases such as blood cancers and provide new treatment options for diseases where currently no effective therapy exists. However, most are still involved in clinical trials and this means there are significant challenges for healthcare providers to overcome and the role of clinical research will be crucial.

Neil Watson, Northern Alliance Co-Director and Director of Pharmacy at The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said, “We are absolutely delighted to be working with a range of industry partners, including Datatrial, who will be invaluable in supporting the accelerated adoption of advanced therapies across the UK.

“Datatrial specifically will help ensure that we have informatics systems in place to capture data throughout the patient journey. Whilst it is key that we maximise access to these new therapies for our patients it is also important that we support our UK industry.”

“Our consortium brings together 12 industry, academic and clinical partners to deliver an ambitious programme not otherwise possible on this scale” said Dr Fiona Thistlethwaite, Medical Oncology Consultant at The Christie and iMATCH Project Director.

“Only by working collaboratively will we be able to tackle the complex challenges associated with scaling up advanced therapies. These treatments have the potential to offer life-changing results for patients with few or no alternative options.”

Datatrial was founded in 1999 to develop software to improve the clinical research process. Soon after, the company successfully expanded its offering with services geared toward helping customers run clinical trials more efficiently and more cost effectively. In 2017,

Datatrial sold its data service division to a US-based company to allow it to focus solely on software development and new products.

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This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Callaghan Marketing .