The high prominence of electronic data capture has obscured the importance of the clinical data management system (CDMS) and the clinical trial management system (CTMS). Neither is especially exciting or electrifying. That’s not our judgment. It’s obvious from the lack of investment or entrepreneurial activity in either the CTMS or…more...

Google is the last company anyone should underestimate. it’s successfully taken on the world’s largest media, software and entertainment companies. So we were intrigued to see a blog post by a Google executive in which he reflected about the inadequacies of the systems used to handle medical and health information.…more...

From 3-5 p.m. yesterday, Tuesday, Dec. 5, the Mass. Technology Leadership Council hosted a seminar in Cambridge on the semantic web. The speakers were luminaries not overexposed on the conference circuit. To name a few, they included: Eric Neumann of Teranode, Ben Hyde of MIT, Rishi Sikka of Boston Medical…more...

Geospiza of Seattle announced it had raised $3 million. The firm creates software to work with large genetic data sets for pharmaceutical and diagnostic purposes. The company is a member of Microsoft’s BioIT Alliance and, as of August, was collaborating with Applied Biosystems. The first product resulting from the expanded…more...

The New York Times has a story about enrolling household pets in clinical trials. Cancer is a particularly hot area of intersecting dog-human research, with 150 certified oncologists among the nation’s 80,000 veterinarians. The newspaper says that the practice is on the rise, but offers no statistics to support that…more...

In a news release, Bruker Daltonics and Australia’s HealthLinx announced a collaboration to find biomarkers useful for detecting complications in pregnancy. The deal involves Bruker’ ClinProt platform. Greg Rice of HealthLinx and Gongyi Shi of Bruker Daltonics’ Fremont, California, lab discovered the biomarkers as a result of the two companies’…more...

There’s a new article in the Outsourcing-Pharma website that is pretty interesting. Most organizations in the industry are not ready for a full-blown media circus, the publication says. The story extensively quotes a public relations professional who advises anyone listening ... not to use a public relations professional. Aafke Huininga…more...

We’ve not paid a lot of attention to the home videos being posted online. But some of those videos, it seems, are about ... clinical trials. This is all very new to us and, we trust, to any equally aged readers out there. Imagine our surprise to see there’s a…more...

VaxGen, the biotech company developing an anthrax vaccine, says it may lose an $877 million federal contract if it cannot address U.S. concerns. Last week, the company halted a trial amid concerns the vaccine could lose potency. A meeting with the FDA is scheduled. The Brisbane, California company insists there…more...

Rick Santorum, the third-ranking Senator and a top recipient of financial aid from the pharmaceutical industry, was defeated in his Senate bid. The race was one of the most bitterly contested in the November election. Together, the two top candidates raised more than $42 million. In the House of Representatives,…more...