Exco InTouch, the leading mobile messaging provider for the pharmaceutical industry, announces that its electronic patient reported outcomes (ePRO) solutions have been selected by Synairgen, a drug discovery company focused on asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Exco InTouch's short message service (SMS) ePRO offerings will enable Synairgen to collect patient data in its second clinical study of inhaled interferon beta (IFN-beta) for asthma treatment.

This Phase 1 study from Synairgen is designed to establish the safety of inhaled IFN-beta at four different dose levels over a 14 day period in asthmatic volunteers. Exco InTouch's innovative text messaging ePRO system will enable Synairgen to collect accurate PRO data which might be crucial in gauging the efficacy in future studies.

Using secure mobile online access, this technology will allow patients to complete diary questionnaires at pre-specified times via a series of text messages. Secure text messages will enable Synairgen's patients to easily record and transmit data concerning their asthma using their own mobile phone, facilitating diary data collection which is then relayed back to the clinical sites for further analyses.

"Symptom diary cards are notoriously unreliable; we are attracted to this simple method for collecting asthma symptom scores on a daily basis" said Richard Marsden, Managing Director of Synairgen