The Financial Times has a hand-wringing article about the globalization of clinical trials. The story is unusual in that it critiques the site-auditing process in developing countries and the rigor of standards of the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH).

WorldCare Clinical (WCC), an imaging clinical research organization, has relocated to Boston, Mass. The company’s headquarters, which include a central reading location, formerly were in Cambridge, Mass. WCC’s new headquarters will feature increased space and state-of-the-art technology infrastructure, including the additional bandwidth, power redundancy and reliability needed for WCC’s WorldPro clinical trial image management platform.

Phase Forward, the clinical trial technology provider, announced Central Coding for InForm 2.0. It’s a new version of a web-based application optimized to handle coding inside Phase Forward’s electronic data capture platform, InForm. Central Coding for InForm 2.0 offers tools to reduce the manual coding required to recode clinical data to reflect the latest standards in multiple dictionaries. Users can compare the differences between versions of the same dictionary (including internally curated ones) and assess the impact a new dictionary will have on an existing study. The software also supports the Oracle 10g database. Steve Rosenberg, senior VP, Phase Forward, said: “Our customers tell us that ensuring adherence to dynamic clinical term dictionaries presents a formidable challenge. We have developed Central Coding for InForm 2.0 in direct response to this input.”

Symfo, a provider of electronic patient-reported outcome technology, announced the appointment of Le Métayer. He joins Symfo from Quintiles in France, where he served as general manager for three years. Serge Bodart, Symfo’s CEO, said: “François will fit well into the Symfo culture. His ability to lead successful global sales will be a huge asset to the company as we continue to expand our electronic patient diary offerings both domestically and internationally. His experience as general manager for one of the biggest CROs will help Symfo realize its strategy for building even more successful partnerships with contract research organizations around the world.”

MDS Pharma Services, a contract research organization, has established an office in Sao Paulo, Brazil. David Spaight, president MDS Pharma Services, said: “Our new office in Sao Paulo is a key component of our global expansion strategy. It allows MDS Pharma Services to provide clients access to a large diverse pool of clinical trial participants and abundant health care resources, including more than 237,000 qualified physicians and more than 46,000 health institutions. Thanks to this excellent infrastructure, clinical trials in Brazil have an impressive track record of strong enrollment rates and good patient compliance and retention.”

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