Press

– Introducing the medical perspective on the current situation, where clinical trial DX, ecosystems, and DCT are being promoted –

Buzzreach Inc. (Head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director and CEO: Takateru Inokawa) has published an interview with Kanazawa University Hospital, which has adopted StudyWorks, the clinical trial support SaaS operated by our company. As the government-led promotion of clinical trial digital transformation and decentralized clinical trials (DCT) accelerates, we bring you the voices of those in the medical field who believe that “now is the time to adopt it.”

Digital revolution in clinical trials. Kanazawa University Hospital takes on the challenge of improving operational efficiency and quality | Click here for the StudyWorks implementation case study interview

▶ Interview excerpt (summary)

Dr. Nagase, Director of Clinical Research Promotion, Center for Advanced Medical Development, Kanazawa University Hospital Mr. Tanaka,
Chief of Clinical Research Promotion, Center for Advanced Medical Development, Kanazawa University Hospital Takateru Ikawa,
Representative Director and CEO, Buzzreach Inc.

“My first thought was to improve the way our staff (CRC) work. I wanted to make it easier to see who is busy and how busy they are.”

“Since the requesting party will also be able to properly check the implementation status of schedules and protocol procedures, if this works well, we believe that checking functions will work on both the facility and the requesting party, which will lead to more appropriate data quality control and will also lead to greater efficiency in operations overall.”

“We wanted to avoid increasing the amount of work on-site due to business management, so we thought about how we could solve this problem.”

▶ Government-promoted × Medical Institutions Favor Clinical Trial DX

The government has launched a series of policies related to the revitalization of new drug development, such as deregulation of GCP*1, the establishment of a clinical trial ecosystem*2, and the promotion of DCT, and has begun various initiatives to enable medical institutions conducting clinical trials to be involved in more clinical trials and clinical research more quickly.In DCT*3, the government is also supporting the development of a digital transformation environment necessary to make clinical trials a more familiar option, starting with e-recruitment, e-consent, online medical consultations, home nursing, and easing delivery of investigational drugs to patients’ homes, pharmacies, and primary care physicians.

Medical institutions are also entering an era where they are being asked to “clarify management and supervision responsibilities” and “infrastructure that can accommodate various clinical trial formats while reducing the workload” in order to attract more clinical trials through digital transformation and operational efficiency improvements, as well as outsourcing clinical trial operations to partner sites in order to support DCT. As a result, various innovative movements are becoming more active at advanced medical institutions that conduct clinical trials.

In such an environment, there are voices saying that now is the best time to introduce StudyWorks’ “platform-based work progress management” and “centralized management compatible with the Japanese DCT” features.

*1 GCP: “Ministerial Ordinance on Standards for the Conduct of Clinical Trials of Pharmaceuticals” (GCP: Good Clinical Practice) established by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

*2 Clinical trial ecosystem: A clinical trial ecosystem is a system in which various stakeholders, including pharmaceutical companies, medical institutions, regulatory authorities, and subjects, cooperate to efficiently conduct clinical trials in order to quickly deliver therapeutic drugs to the public.

*3 DCT: Decentralized Clinical Trial is a new method for expanding clinical trial options. It is an initiative to improve the efficiency of clinical trials by working with cooperating medical institutions called partner sites, rather than consolidating all clinical trial operations at a single medical institution.

■What is StudyWorks?

StudyWorks is a clinical trial support SaaS for medical institutions. In addition to centralized management of clinical trial-related tasks centered on CRCs and administrative offices, it provides integrated functionality essential in the era of clinical trial digital transformation and DCT , including sharing of CRC tasks both within and outside the hospital, collaboration functions such as e-recruitment progress management, online appointment management/visit management for DCT management, and report creation support .

StudyWorks service site

Future prospects and social significance

Buzzreach will work with medical institutions, pharmaceutical companies, CROs, and government agencies to promote clinical trial digital transformation in Japan and build an ecosystem to popularize DCT (decentralized clinical trials) .

Through these interview articles, we hope to communicate to society the practical value of clinical trials for the present and future, and to support the accelerated approval of new drugs.

[Contact for this matter]
Buzzreach Inc. Public Relations
Email: info@buzzreach.co.jp
URL: https://www.buzzreach.co.jp/contact