10 Reasons To Avoid Using Excel For Clinical Trials

The dominance of Excel in managing study startup processes persists at 78%, with only 28% of CROs employing commercial study startup applications, twice the rate of sponsors. To enhance study startup, 60% of CROs advocate reducing spreadsheet use. Excel's limitations contribute to top pain points, including operational oversight absence, project management standardization deficiency, and system integration gaps.

Study startup encompasses critical activities like country selection, site initiation, and regulatory compliance. Covance reports a staggering $50,000 cost per site activation, with non-performing sites causing a $2 billion loss from 2006 to 2010. Excel's deficiencies in project management, regulatory compliance, data security, and collaboration underscore the need for purpose-built study startup applications. These applications streamline communication, tracking, and risk mitigation, facilitating real-time reporting and unified oversight for sponsors, CROs, and sites, expediting study activation, and reducing administrative burdens.

As clinical trials become increasingly complex and global, learn why abandoning Excel for specialized applications becomes imperative for efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness.