Clinical trial software

Running the clinical trial, with every step recorded to the standard a drug regulator demands

Back to the molecule from Market Segments 25.1 and 25.2. It has passed the laboratory. Now it must be tested in people. Picture a trial of the new skin cream with 3,000 patients, at 200 hospitals in twelve countries, over three years.

A test of a new medicine in people is called a clinical trial. Every step must be recorded to the standard a drug regulator demands:

who was enrolled in the trial
which patients got the medicine, and which got a dummy, decided at random so the comparison is fair
what dose each patient received, and when
what happened to each patient, including what patients report themselves

The software that records all this, assigns the patients at random, ships the medicine to each hospital and collects what patients report is a large industry. Much of it is built in India. India also does a large share of the world's work on trial data and its statistics, called biostatistics. The buyers are drug companies, and the firms that run trials for them.

This Market Segment covers the software. The firms that run trials for drug companies, with their own software, are covered in Market Segment 25.4, Contract research organisations (CROs).

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

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What this section holds

What this section holds

Back to the trial of the skin cream from the start of this Market Segment. Its data comes from 200 hospitals, and must end up in one place, clean and checked.

A trial's data comes from every hospital taking part: the software assigns each patient at random, ships the medicine, captures the data and collects what patients report (Signant Health, Endpoint Clinical, Medable, Clario), and a clinical data platform brings it into one place, clean and checked, for the regulator (Veeva Systems, eClinical Solutions).

The data platforms

Veeva Systems

with engineers in Hyderabad, has the most job postings of any company covered mainly in this Market Segment. Much of the drug industry runs on its cloud. Its Vault products hold clinical data, trial management and the documents sent to regulators. It also sells the CRM with which drugs are sold.

eClinical Solutions

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells elluminate, a clinical data cloud. It gathers a trial's data from every source, for review and analysis.

What happens to each patient

Signant Health

with engineers in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, sells several parts of a trial's software. It captures the trial's data. It collects outcome assessments, the reports of how each patient is doing, including the ones patients fill in themselves. It also assigns patients at random, and manages the supply of the medicine.

Endpoint Clinical

sells software that assigns patients at random and manages the supply of the medicine.

Medable

sells a platform for trials in which patients take part from home.

Clario

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells electronic outcome assessments. It also reads the scans and ECGs taken during trials, and collects data on the medicine's safety for the heart. (For reading scans, it also appears in Market Segment 24.3, Medical imaging and radiology AI, in Industry Vertical 24, Hospitals, diagnostics and medical devices.)

Designing the trial

Cytel

with engineers in Pune, sells software for designing trials, and the statistics that analyse them.

Three companies covered mainly in other Market Segments are here too:

Emmes Group

with engineers in Bengaluru, runs trials for drug companies.

M3 USA

is here for its trial platform, which sits beside its network of doctors. (More on it in Market Segment 25.6, Pharma commercial analytics.)

eHealth Technologies

with engineers in Hyderabad, is here for fetching patients' records for trials. (More on it in Market Segment 23.3, Healthcare data platforms and interoperability, in Industry Vertical 23, Health insurance and billing.)

Emmes Group is covered mainly in Market Segment 25.4, Contract research organisations (CROs), and Cytel also appears there.

The trial that finds its patients.

The slowest part of most trials is finding patients who qualify. AI models now read hospitals' records to find them. They also draft the trial's plan, called the protocol, and its changes, and clean the trial's data as it arrives. Regulators are writing the rules for AI in trials, while the industry is already adopting it.

AI models read hospitals' records to find patients who qualify for a trial, the slowest part of most trials, and also draft the protocol and clean the data as it arrives.

So the skin cream's trial from the start of this Market Segment runs on software, from the first patient to the last result. It assigns each patient, ships the medicine, collects every report, and brings the data from 200 hospitals into one place for the regulator.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What pharma and life sciences companies hire for.

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