Exco InTouch, the leading mobile messaging provider for the pharmaceutical industry, has been presented with the Best IT Strategy award at the 2008 European Outsourcing Awards. The prestigious industry awards were held in Frankfurt on October 1, 2008 by Via Media Ltd, a dynamic media company specialising in printed and digital publications for a wide range of industries including pharmaceutical, biopharmaceuticals and life sciences. The international judging panel took into account a number of factors when awarding the honours including the effective deployment of the technology and its benefits to users.
Exco InTouch received the award in recognition of its ATLAS™ short messaging service (SMS) technology for clinical trial applications. The company won the award for their submission based on the innovative integration of the ATLAS system with electronic data capture (EDC) technology which enables pharmaceutical sponsors to quickly identify and contact potential clinical trial subjects, speeding up the recruitment process. ATLAS from Exco InTouch is also used within a number of clinical trials to improve patient retention and compliance. Using ATLAS, sponsors can send personalised text messages to subjects enrolled in a study, including clinic and medication reminders and motivational tips.
"The judging panel was extremely impressed with the standard of entries for the 2008 awards," comments Kevin Robinson, Editorial Director, Via Media Ltd. "Exco InTouch's submission stood out as an innovative technology that provides real benefits to the pharmaceutical industry."
Tim Davis, Co-Founder, Exco InTouch, comments: "We are delighted that Exco InTouch has been presented with this industry honour. SMS is a growing technology with wide-ranging applications in the pharmaceutical industry and can offer unique benefits to sponsors in terms of facilitating clinical trials processes. It is extremely rewarding to see the industry recognising the effectiveness and innovation of new technologies such as SMS."
Drug development companies are looking for faster access to data both for the recruitment process and during the life of a study, and by using ATLAS to communicate with and elicit responses from patients, sponsors can speed up recruitment drives and optimise product-to-market time. ATLAS technology is already used to create global, regulatory compliant messaging services for patient recruitment, retention and compliance in a wide range of clinical studies. ATLAS can also be integrated with clinical trial technologies such as electronic data capture (EDC) systems in order to offer fully streamlined recruitment, retention and compliance processes.
