Medrio: Facilitating Paperless eClinical Trials

Numerous complications continue to plague the global biopharmaceutical industry, in the form of complex clinical trials, labor-intensive clinical tools, and time-consuming and expensive processes. Amidst the labyrinth of intricacies, there is an opportunity for innovation to take over and mitigate these challenges. As such, companies like Medrio were born. San Francisco-based Medrio develops a state-of-the-art cloud-based eClinical platform with a fully hosted Electronic Data Capture (EDC) system. The highly-intuitive Software as a Service (SaaS) platform has a small footprint and leverages cutting-edge eClinical tools that don’t require any programming support. With years of experience in marketing, product management, and strategic expertise, Leslie Olsen who is the VP of Product Marketing in Medrio, well perceives the setbacks of the industry. “Our unique differentiator is, unlike other competitors in the biopharmaceutical landscape, we have put the controls in the hands of our customers,” she remarks. While most eClinical companies require experienced programmers and developers to set up studies in systems, Medrio’s eClinical platform is incredibly easy to use and allows studies to be ready in days instead of weeks.

Sharing his insights on Medrio’s escalated global expansion, Shinya Yamamoto, Ph.D., Managing Director of Medrio in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) Region, says, “US owns the lion’s share in the global biopharmaceutical industry, followed by Japan and Mainland China.” Owing to the surging demand in the eClinical trial arena in the APAC region, Medrio is expanding its footprint, particularly in Australia, Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea and India.

Furthermore, Yamamoto discusses the paradigm shift in the biopharmaceutical ecosystem brought forth by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) through their key guidance, namely eSource data, risk-based monitoring, eConsent, and real-world evidence. The FDA and the EMA are now focusing more on technology-driven paper-less clinical trial processes, data-driven risk-based approach to drug efficacy, and their safety information. “Medrio is perfectly suited for such innovative guidance,” he adds.

Medrio’s eClinical product suite comprises of Medrio EDC (Electronic Data Capture), Medrio eSource, and Medrio ePRO—each designed to help clinical researchers and study coordinators chase the next breakthrough in public health. Medrio EDC allows for fast and flexible data collection by the user, enables mid-study changes, and handles database build with speed and efficiency. Facilitating a complete paperless data entry, Medrio eSource streamlines data capture and monitoring, syncing it to EDC. Leslie comments, “Cost related to monitoring of source data verification (SDV) for clinical trials is a major issue in Asia and eSource is aptly positioned to tackle it.” Besides, eSource makes it significantly easy for sponsors to review source clinical data remotely in a timely manner.

In terms of customer experience, Medrio’s dedicated and dynamic team ensures that customers are on-boarded easily in a way that meets their specific study needs. Leveraging Medrio’s robust eLearning platform, customers can watch short video tutorials online on how to use the eClinical platform. Customer-centricity is in the DNA of Medrio, and each of its offerings is focused on bringing the maximum value for customers. Another essential component of the eLearning platform is the Medrio community—an online community where customers can submit support tickets, request features, and communicate with other customers.

Medrio aims to continue enhancing and expanding the capabilities of their EDC platform and will launch the first version of their upcoming product— eConsent—later this year that will enable reading consents and digital signature. The company also envisions instilling integration capabilities in their tools, enabling them to connect to wearable devices and smartphones. Furthermore, Medrio is looking to implement AI for efficiently collecting and analyzing the growing volume of clinical data.