DecisionView a big step forward in clinical trials

That is, a lot of little improvements can eventually add up to one gigantic one.

Take the subject of clinical trials. You probably don't think much about them, but they're a key to getting new life-saving drugs to market.

If we can run them faster, if we can make them more accurate, especially on the front-end where we're looking for volunteers, then drugs get to market faster. Change accelerates.

That's the idea behind DecisionView, which released Version 4 of its StudyOptimizer today.

"In Version 4 we've also advanced the predictive analytics and confidence levels to give more confidence to people in forecasting, especially in light of the variables in clinical trials," said president John ScullionCEO Jim Scullion. "We built a plan for adaptive trials."

Just as important may be the company's recent move to offer a SaaS version of the software.

"Because of the SaaS model we can now sell on a trial basis. Before we had to sign large enterprise deals with large pharmas. We've driven the cost of the solution down."

Scullion divides the market into Tiers. The top tier, where he has good penetration, consists of just the 20 biggest pharmaceutical companies. The second tier includes the next 25, plus the big biotechs. "We're marketing now to Tier Two and Tier Three, because we can put them on a single trial basis," said Scullion.

What does this mean on the bottom line. For Glaxo SmithKline, a DecisionView customer, it means doubling the number of trials that are completed on time. That's a savings of $1 million per month, per trial, and then you add the faster time-to-market and the chance their drug will get FDA approval ahead of something else whose maker didn't use DecisionView.

It becomes a no-brainer.

Besides driving down costs for big pharma, however, the savings from something like DecisionView, delivered as SaaS, can also let some small, innovative companies stay in the game, instead of consolidating.

Now consider how many other elements in the drug research and delivery process are being automated, as DecisionView is helping automate the creation of reliable trials.

In my book on Moore's Law I noted there is no Moore's Law of Software, because productivity improvements there are arithmetic, not geometric. But there is a Moore's Law effect that you can get from installing better tools at every point in an industrial process.

DecisionView may be one small step for drug companies, but add in everything happening in the field and giant leaps are being made.