CROs are not new to technology for running studies-for example, clinical trial management systems and electronic data capture systems.
#Ockham cro software
Unfortunately, many CROs are working with a combination of paper records, spreadsheets and document management software to estimate profitability and forecast revenue. This is the crux of the challenge-it requires state-of-the-art tools. The CRO must continually fine-tune their profitability model to ensure this does not happen in future studies. For example, if the CRO estimates it will take two hours of clinical research associate (CRA) time to deliver a unit, but it ends up taking three hours instead, then profit quickly evaporates. The challenge is to precisely budget the time of professionals working to deliver those units. This means that the sponsor pays a fixed amount for each unit, regardless of the effort to deliver the unit. The problem is complex because sponsors typically pay CROs for deliverables on what is known as a “unitized” basis. To gain insight into the profitability problem let's look at how CROs and sponsors interact, and how difficult it can be to measure study profitability-and even more difficult to forecast. While top line revenue growth is good, growth of profitability is important to attract and retain top talent. This trend is expected to increase to 15%, according to industry reports.īut despite rapid growth, many CROs are seeing dramatic declines in profitability-up to 50% by some estimates. Ockham also plans to use the acquisition to expand its FSP into clinical, which is Nexus’ specialty.The pharmaceutical industry continues to outsource more clinical trials to contract research organizations (CROs) each year-resulting in CRO growth of over 10% annually in the last five years. “As a result, we’ve created this nice niche where, at the end of the day, we’ve become known as one of the top five early-stage oncology CROs.” “The small trials we work on require a certain amount of leadership, and the large guys can’t do that as efficiently as we do,” he said. Ockham and Nexus both compete with other small, oncology-focused CROs including Novella, Aptiv and Premier, said Baker. The company stayed with the market segment Ockham had been serving: emerging biotech and pharma companies seeking help with phase I and II trials. In 2009, said Baker, the company acquired five-year-old Ockham, a “distressed” full-service CRO with 60 employees.
Over time, it began working with pharma companies, providing CRAs, data managers, statistical programmers and biostatisticians, and eventually offering functional service provider (FSP) services to companies working on cancer drugs. Ockham launched in 1986 as ASG, a specialty staffing company focusing primarily on IT. But Baker said by yearend Ockham will make a final decision on the combined entity’s name. For now, Nexus Oncology will be known as Nexus Oncology, an Ockham Company. Nexus founder Clare Wareing will stay as chief scientific officer.
Ockham had 175 employees before the acquisition and operated primarily in the U.S., with satellite offices in India and the U.K. Twelve-year-old Nexus has 120 employees across Scotland, Poland, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary, Belgium and Spain, in addition to Canada and the U.S. James Baker, Ockham’s CEO, said Nexus comes with a stable book of business and an institutional investment partner. Terms of the cash-and-stock deal were undisclosed.
Ockham Development Group of Cary, N.C., has acquired Nexus Oncology of Edinburgh, Scotland. Two small but powerful oncology-focused CROs are now one.
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