The Future of Clinical Research: Developing New Drugs Faster Using Electronic Health Records

- GENEVA, December 3, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Published in "Contemporary Clinical Trials", a cost-benefit study establishes that the revolutionary technological platform developed by the "Electronic Health Records for Clinical Research" (EHR4CR) project, co-funded by the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), under the Innovative Medicines Initiative, would enhance and speed up clinical research processes, reduce trials timelines and costs, and generate significant added value for clinical trial sponsors.      (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151203/292886LOGO ) Professor Dr Georges De Moor, Head, Medical Informatics and Statistics Department, Ghent University, explained: "EHR4CRhasdeveloped a breakthrough European platform, InSite,that connects securely to the data within multiple hospital-basedelectronic health records (EHR)systems and clinical data warehouses across Europe, to enable a trial sponsor to predict the number of eligible patients for a candidate clinical trial protocol, assess its feasibility, and locate the most relevant hospitals to recruit as trial centres." Dr Ariel Beresniak, CEO, Data Mining International, the Swiss research agency which performed this study, stated: "Using an advanced methodology,for the first time,this robustcost-benefitstudy establishesthat reusinghospital-based EHR data for clinical researchwould speed up drug development,increase efficiency,andgeneratesubstantialaddedvalue." Dr Mats Sundgren, EFPIA Coordinator of the EHR4CR project, and Principal Scientist, Global Medicines Development at AstraZeneca, declared: "These findings suggest that leveragingEHR data for clinical research provides global pharmaceutical industry with a game-changing opportunity,and new value-added solutionstoenhanceexisting processes, reducedelaysand costs,and deliver innovative medicines to patients faster.An early adoption program is planned withmanyEuropean pharmaceuticalleadingcompanies". Professor Dr Dipak Kalra, President of EuroRec, announced: "The operational solutionsusing EHR4CR results, nowbeing scaled up across Europe, will bepresented to thescientific community at theinaugural conference of the European Institute for Innovation through Health Data (I~HD),on March 10, 2016, in Paris." A. Beresniak, et al., Cost-benefit assessment of using electronic health records data for clinical research versus current practices: Contribution of the Electronic Health Records for Clinical Research (EHR4CR) European Project. Contemp Clin Trials 2016(46):85-91; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cct.2015.11.011 . About Data Mining International http://www.datamining-international.com Data Mining International SA is an independent international research agency based in Geneva (Switzerland), specialized in advanced modelling for decision-making, health technology assessment, risk assessment, big data analytics, business modelling.