Email is emerging as the most important communication tool for clinical trial management, used extensively today to coordinate sites and to resolve critical issues. While an improvement over the traditional, paper-based process, the lack of an email management tool specifically designed for clinical trials threatens to derail the industry's objectives of faster time-to-market and lower development costs. ePeople CTmail addresses this specific need by reducing site management costs and improving the visibility and response to critical issues, requests and observations inside emails.

"In my twenty-five years of product development experience in the biotech industry, I have witnessed several step-changes in technology that deliver remarkable gains in the commercialization of new products," said Dr. Allison Wren, a biotech consultant and the advisory board Chairperson of Pria Diagnostics. "CTmail promises to be the next inflection point for clinical trials. I see tremendous gains in productivity by capturing the intellectual property trapped in email, closing the loop on site management, and providing managers with the visibility and decision support tools they need to keep clinical trials on track."

ePeople CTmail starts with the inbox. Building upon the familiar email interface and existing work practices, CTmail can be easily deployed to hundreds of sites and accessed with any messaging device. Knowledge that used to be trapped in personal folders or archived in email threads is classified and published to a central knowledge base, available online for the study team. As critical emails are received, issues are segregated and prioritized in an online workspace. From the context of the issue, available experts are identified and invited to help based on their relevant expertise. Experts collaborate online to address and quickly resolve the issue - whether it is related to a site start-up, subject drop-out rates, an adverse effect, or non-compliance with trial SOPs and/or Good Clinical Practice Guidelines. Knowledge created during the resolution is posted to the knowledge base to improve response to similar issues and simplify knowledge transfer between study phases.

Clinical trial managers use this newfound visibility to monitor key performance indicators and ensure the highest levels of compliance. As a decision support tool, CTmail helps management make faster, more-informed decisions which is especially important given the average cost for a moderately complex trial can top $380,000 per day.

"CTmail is the key enabling technology that we are using to commercialize our Class II Medical Device, Element, in a trial that spans three sites and hundreds of patients," said Doug Erwin, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Pria Diagnostics. "CTmail seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Outlook and offers our study team the advanced knowledge management and collaborative tools they need complete the trial on budget and within a very aggressive timeline."

About Pria Diagnostics
Pria Diagnostics, formerly Advanced Fluidix Laboratories, is a medical device company devoted to providing affordable medical products that people can use to perform diagnostics in the privacy and comfort of their homes. The company's first product is a low-cost, over-the-counter method of evaluating male fertility, a market that is underserved by the medical and pharmaceutical industry.

About ePeople
ePeople is a leading provider of business email management solutions for high-value customer relationships in Life Sciences, High Technology and Engineer-to-order industries. ePeople's solutions for clinical trial management, collaborative support and team selling, streamline complex process that demand close coordination of experts, best practices and knowledge. ePeople solutions are designed for rapid adoption and integrate with Microsoft Outlook, CRM, email, IM and the web. ePeople customers, including companies such as Cisco Systems, Pria Diagnostics, Cognos, Network Appliance, InstallShield, and Openwave Systems, enjoy significant gains in productivity, responsiveness and service quality. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., ePeople is privately held. More information on ePeople is available at www.epeople.com.


NOTE: ePeople and the ePeople logo are trademarks of ePeople, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.