Merge Healthcare will acquire Amicas, another imaging-oriented IT firm, for $248 million. The new entity aims to be a powerhouse in both the health care integration market and the clinical trial research landscape. Separately, Merge recently launched software that allows radiologists to view medical images on Apple iPhones and iPod Touch…more...

Nextrials, a provider of electronic data capture, has become a registered provider of services conforming to the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) standards. The San Francisco firm is the only one in the industry that's been vetted on CDISC's new Healthcare Link Initiative. The company says its technology to connect…more...

Our friends at the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) are running a survey about standards adoption in the pharmaceutical industry. The survey will only be open for additional input for a few more days. The standards body is also announcing several new training sessions in California and Europe. …more...

Kendle launched a new system for biostatistics. According to the news release, the platform is based on SAS and will be used by a growing team of Kendle personnel in India. "Data will be processed at the server level much faster than ever before, greatly improving the productivity of our teams…more...

DSG, a provider of electronic data capture, has helped an unidentified sponsor of clinical research to integrate molecular diagnostic assays in clinical research. The news release says the company's system facilitates more immediate access to the operational aspects of trials and a 30 percent savings in management costs. won…more...

The Society for Clinical Data Management (SCDM) has released a best practices document about automated data cleaning, i.e. edit checks that are launched in computer-assisted clinical trials. Said Charlene Dark, leader of the organization's task force on the topic: “By publishing a set of best practices pertaining to edit check design,…more...

Almac will distribute quality of life assessments from Facit.org. David Cella, president of Facit.org, said: "We are excited about the potential of our relationship with Almac Clinical Technologies. Partnerships such as these help streamline the inclusion of valid patient-reported-outcome tools into clinical trials efficiently and accurately." Here's a release. …more...

There's a new report from GBI Research on eclinical trial technologies. The report mentions Oracle Corporation, SAS, Clinplus, Phase Forward, Perceptive Informatics and Omnicomm. CRF Health, an ediary firm, announced a new version of its system for tablet computers. Here's a release. Kendle is looking for a senior statistical programmer in…more...

Should contract research organizations in a dicey economy explore a fixed price model—a departure from sacrosanct hourly billing rates? That's the heresy in this Life Science Leader article by Chris Porter, an executive at Clinipace. Porter observes that some lawyers, of all people, have been persuaded not to charge by the…more...

Dainippon Sumitomo chose the web-based version of the SAS Drug Development platform as an electronic repository for its regulatory data and documents. The drug development system handles both content management and analytical activities within the SAS environment. Here's a release. Kika Clinical Solutions, an electronic data capture supplier, reported strong growth…more...