It is utterly impossible to pigeonhole Dr. Jerald Schindler. We’ve tried. Schindler confounds the three easiest caricatures that any self-respecting journalist would reach for. Schindler is a biostatistician, but speaks fluidly, lucidly. He’s a vendor, but leaves his Cytel sales pitch in the overhead luggage bin on the plane to…more...

Chris Connor is IDC’s Health Industry Insights analyst. He covers the clinical trial and health care space. His official title: senior research analyst, cinical development. ClinPage had a chance to pick Connor’s fertile brain not long ago, grilling him on trends in the electronic data capture (EDC) universe. His perspective…more...

With double-digit growth across all its service lines, privately held Phoenix Data Systems (PDS) is on a roll. The Philadelphia electronic data capture (EDC) firm reported a banner fourth quarter for 2006, with $9.5 million in new contracts and six new customers. All told, the company said, it added a…more...

The free world is struggling to absorb the news of a much-rumored one-button Apple mobile handset, the “i-Phone.” Cingular will support the device. It’s a quad-band phone, with GSM+EDGE, plus Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, SMS, CallerID, ring tones, conferencing and a calendar. IMAP and POP3 are supported, as is HTML formatting,…more...

Wal-Mart is rolling out automated, database-driven scheduling of cashiers and clerks. Instead of having regular shifts, Wal-Mart associates will be assigned to work at particular times of day on a store-by-store basis. The assignments will be based on recent trends in customer traffic in each retail establishment. Managers who once…more...

As ClinPage reported recently, Dana-Farber Harvard Cancer Center has been using Phase Forward’s InForm software for clinical trials for a while. But only since the summer of 2006 has the academic medical center embarked on using electronic data capture (EDC) for its largest and most complex trial, a 500-patient study…more...

Some people get dragged to a movie—only to discover they love it. That appears to be what happened to Marina Nillni, Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center’s corporate team leader for clinical trials information systems. Dana-Farber picked Phase Forward’s InForm software as its electronic data capture (EDC) solution, but delayed using it for…more...

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...

No longer does your correspondent eagerly await a new browser, install a new browser. If the old one ain’t broke, we don’t hunt down a new one. The people at Medidata beg to disagree. They feel that the appropriate support of the clinical trial site community obliges them to take…more...

As ClinPage reported last week, AstraZeneca recently made an enterprise-level decision to use a commercial electronic data capture (EDC) solution. Here’s our first story about the decision. The bottom line is that another major sponsor of clinical trials is purchasing EDC after previously feeling it was not yet ready for…more...