EDC In Clinical Trials – Can You Afford NOT To Go Electronic?

By Ed Miseta, Chief Editor, Clinical Leader

With the technology advances we have seen in the last 10 years, and changes that we continue to see every day, it’s hard to believe that, worldwide, only around 20% of clinical trials are using electronic data capture (EDC). The other 80% of data is still being captured on paper or in Excel spreadsheets. With any luck, in ten years we will see 99% of trials capturing data electronically. Many changes are occurring which will enable that to happen, but life science companies will need to educate themselves on the changing landscape.

Of course the first question you have to ask is why the low adoption rate. Glenn Keet, CEO of Clinovo, argues the answer lies in perceptions about the cost and complexity of migrating to EDC. Barriers that existed in the past could generally be navigated by large pharma companies that had the money and manpower to overcome them. For startup life science companies, it was a different story. “They did not have the knowledge, the resources, or the budget to move to electronic trials,” he says. “The situation has now changed, and the reality is it is almost always cheaper to capture data electronically than to do it only on paper. However, misconceptions still exist in the market. Going forward, education and better access to available tools will allow them to take advantage of EDC as well.”