On a Mission to Modernize and Simplify Clinical Research 

In the world of design, simplicity is achieved by removing, rather than adding more. The most elegant designs are those where there is nothing left to take away. Yet, a simple design is anything but simple to achieve as it requires a deep understanding of the purpose for the design.

At Teckro, we are applying the same concept of design simplicity to address today’s broken clinical trial process. You don’t have to look hard to find staggering evidence of how the industry is in desperate need of simplification. While there is nearly a three-fold increase in the number of trials just in the last 10 years, the practices to run a clinical trial haven’t changed in decades.

And while there are more trials, success rates aren’t necessarily improving. It is estimated that less than half of Phase II trials have successful outcomes. Of course, there are safety and scientific reasons that studies fail, which is the nature of clinical research. Our concerns are the avoidable blocking factors that stand in the way of success, such as too much paper, inconsistent communication, or a general lack of visibility into what’s going on with the study.

In today’s digital world, it is hard to believe that the primary interface for most clinical trials is a paper document or a PDF file that resides somewhere on a portal. Not only are these solutions impractical, they increase, rather than decrease, the interaction cost for busy site staff to fully engage with the trial. Unfortunately, the statistics reflect this with 40% of sites under recruiting and 80% of clinical trials failing to meet recruitment timelines.

Physicians have only minutes with each patient, and even less time to consider eligibility for a clinical trial. Yet, the protocol is rarely available where the patient is. These challenges of time and access extend beyond patient recruitment to all aspects of clinical trial compliance, including patient safety and toxicity management. The need for instant, reliable answers is paramount.

At Teckro, we asked ourselves what can we take away to simplify clinical research? We’ve identified three key areas where we can modernize and simplify how things are done today so we can help protect patient safety and improve study quality:

• Make all current, approved study information securely accessible in seconds anytime, anywhere through a smartphone or web-enabled device.
• Create a secure, real-time digital connection to every stakeholder so that critical information and communication can be targeted to the right people at the right time.
• Provide actionable insights into study performance so that issues can be detected sooner and proactively addressed.

By tackling these three areas, Teckro is bridging the gap between site staff and sponsors with a single digital solution. The focus is simplification. To design the most useful solutions possible, we spend countless hours of research and interviews to really understand the jobs that our users need to do.

Out of this deep understanding, we have solutions that make the process more transparent. Depending on the user, the questions are different. Site staff need quick answers to whether patients are eligible for a study, how to conduct a procedure, or how to manage an adverse event. Sponsors want to understand site engagement and whether there are early indications of any issues with the protocol or patient safety.

All study stakeholders can use Teckro to find an answer to their study questions. Our corporate video provides a good explanation.

By tackling complexity in clinical research, more sites will be engaged, their participation will be more successful, and they will extend access to more patients around the world.