MARKET INSIGHTS
By Deborah Borfitz
Dec. 1, 2008 | Melbourne, Australia-based Evado is taking its electronic data capture (EDC) capabilities into Singapore and Malaysia through a partnership with SeerPharma, a compliance consultancy serving the Asia-Pacific region. SeerPharma specifically requested that it be allowed to distribute and support Evado’s web-based clinical trial software program, which offers “80 percent of the functionality” of big EDC systems at one-fifth the cost, says CEO Jennie Anderson.
Industry-friendly Singapore is highly Westernized and EDC-savvy, says Anderson. Most of the large pharmaceutical companies once headquartered in Australia relocated to Singapore a few years ago. Many international companies and all of the major clinical research organizations (CROs) have a presence here. Since the Singapore Good Clinical Practice (GCP) Guidelines were set up by the Ministry of Health a decade ago, the nation’s clinical trials market has doubled in size. Most trials are conducted in oncology, clinical pharmacology, gastroenterology, and cardiology – niche areas in which Singapore has built up its medical expertise.
Even with the current economic downturn, trial-sponsoring companies and hospital-based investigative sites have continued to invest in research here, says Anderson. That includes implementation of eClinical solutions which, according to a recent Datamonitor report, can save a company anywhere from $10-$15 million annually on paper and postage alone.
It’s a different story in ethnically diverse Malaysia. Being a “brand new market,” significant EDC uptake is still a few years off, says Anderson. According to the Clinical Research Centre in Malaysia, there were 68 trials conducted in the country last year and another 68 through June 2008. This excludes about 1,500 investigator-led studies done in 2007. The country is served by only a few CROs, and pre-clinical labs are just now being established. More GCP training is needed.
Network speeds are less than 1 gigabyte/second in some sections of Malaysia, so EDC solutions would run “extremely slowly,” says Anderson. Having the proper infrastructure will therefore be a condition of sale to ensure Evado works at peak performance.
In terms of competition, Oracle Clinical (used by PPD and Covance) and Phase Forward (used by Quintiles) currently have most of the market, says Anderson. Sales of Evado in Southeast Asia are likely to be bigger than in Australia, which has been facing tough economic times. Government grants for innovation have stopped, and trials have been discontinued due to a lack of funding. Driven by global cost-cutting, J&J recently decided to shutter its research facility in Sydney.
One differentiating feature of Evado, a division of Invision IT Systems Pty Ltd, is that no software changes are required to implement new trials or add fields to existing forms, says Anderson. Although Evado’s data validation functions currently lack the sophistication of vendors like Phase Forward, the gap is expected to be narrowed with future releases. The company is also investigating the possibility of adding a patient diary function.
Earlier this year, Evado released a pre-clinical module, including electronic lab book and Wikipedia-like functionality. The module was developed to help universities retain access to research notes of departing investigators as well as ensure data is collected in a compliant manner, says Anderson. A software-as-a-service option also became available last spring.
Evado is about to be integrated with ADInstruments, developer of telemetry software, allowing users to upload lab files into the EDC system using a web form, says Anderson. Instrument traces will be viewable on the web or after download via ADInstruments’ LabChart Reader.
In addition to SeerPharma, the Centre of Cardiovascular Research and Education in Therapeutics (CCRE) at Monash University in Melbourne just signed a reseller agreement for their commercial trials with Evado. CCRE also made a multi-year commitment to use Evado for its own studies. The university has a campus in Malaysia.
A year from now, Evado may have an Asian office in either Singapore or Malaysia, says Anderson. In mid-2009, it will be seeking external funding to support the company’s international growth strategy. “We’re also looking at the potential of making Evado multi-lingual,” she adds. English is the first language in Singapore and one of the principal languages spoken in Malaysia.
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