The journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery has a subscription-only article about an adaptive Phase II trial in oncology. The trial is using biomarkers found in tissue biopsies. One expert quoted is Roy Herbst of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, which has helped to pioneer the adaptive approach.

Patient recruitment firm BBK Worldwide has announced that it is using the Apple iPad to manage recruitment campaigns. As best we can tell, the idea is to have electronic documents related to recruitment readily at hand on the new tablet device. A recent ClinPage article on the firm can be found here.

Two already large electronic health records firms are merging. Allscripts will buy Eclipsys for $1.3 billion. Here's a link.

How to get noncompliant patients to take their medicine? Pay them. That's the conclusion of a New York Times article that interviews low-income patients with tuberculosis and psychiatric conditions. Some of the solutions involve automated cutting-edge pill bottles that add a lottery aspect to the incentives.

Some litigious Phase Forward shareholders believe the company has been undervalued by Oracle, which plans to buy Phase Forward for $685 million. That represents a 30 percent premium to the stock price on the date of the offer, but Phase Forward's stock has traded higher in the past. It's unclear whether various pending requests by federal agencies for additional information on the deal are standard and insignificant—or potential signs that the sale may be hitting obstacles in Washington.

A financial blog notes that Kendle shares have dropped more than 20 percent since a May earnings announcement. The article inexplicably compares Kendle to sponsor firms that develop and market drugs, not Kendle's peers in the contract research industry.

Covance opened a $15 million biorepository facility in Indiana. The site will store samples needed in biotechnology-related research for at least one customer: Lilly. "The facility is able to store a wide-range of specimens, including plasma, serum, whole blood, DNA, [peripheral blood mononuclear cell] PBMC, and tissue," the company said in a news release. "The biorepository has unsurpassed safety and security features, including the ability to withstand exposure to winds in excess of 300 miles per hour, which is the equivalent of an F5 tornado, the highest level of tornado intensity. The facility offers a wide range of frozen storage including -20 degrees C, -70 degrees C, -80 degrees C, and -150 degrees C vapor phase liquid nitrogen." Sounds like something out of a Hollywood movie.

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