PALO ALTO, CALIF. – December 14, 2011 – Regulatory and financial pressures in clinical development have resulted in an increasing demand from sponsors and contract research organization (CROs) for user-friendly and comprehensive tools that offer the ability to easily access, explore and analyze clinical research data. While a number of analytics tools exist, most fail to meet the needs of drug and medical device developers looking to tackle a range of operational challenges. In response, Comprehend Systems has added new features and functionalities to its clinical data visualization and analytics software, Comprehend Clinical™, offering clinical developers unparalleled access to research data within individual trials and across multiple studies in a category or pipeline.

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Comprehend Clinical™ is a visualization and analytics tool created by industry veterans with a mission to help sponsors and CROs overcome key obstacles in clinical development. Unlike other visualization tools that are cumbersome and costly to implement, Comprehend Clinical™ is easy to deploy, use and integrate with other systems, including electronic data capture (EDC) and clinical trial management (CTMS). With simple, embeddable and interactive dashboards, Comprehend Clinical™ enables ad-hoc reporting from any data source in real-time. As a result, Comprehend Clinical™ offers a view into the most critical high-level operational metrics – from patient recruitment to serious adverse events – as well as the ability to drill down into specific issues that arise throughout the course of a trial – from protocol deviations to problematic sites.

“The application of analytics in clinical development isn’t new, but no one has really gotten it right – researchers are still looking for a tool that gives them access to the data they need and can be easily embedded into their existing workflow,” said Rick Morrison, CEO of Comprehend Systems. “By working with the key players in clinical trials, including EDC vendors, CROs and sponsors, Comprehend is poised to fill the market need for a simple, web-enabled data visualization and reporting tool that is customized for the clinical space.”

Using Comprehend Clinical™, CROs are able to provide their customers with better access to their data, and EDC vendors can supplement their offering with best-in-show analytics. New features in Comprehend Clinical™ include:

• Mobile access – Comprehend Clinical™ dashboards are now functional on web-enabled mobile devices, including smart phones and the iPad, and can be embedded on any web portal or SharePoint site.
• Drag-and-drop ad-hoc reporting – Users can easily and quickly create more complex visualizations and customized, real-time reports.
• Custom dashboards – Dashboards can be customized by the user to ensure they are getting up-to-date access to the data that is most important to them and drill down as necessary.

Comprehend Systems is working with BioPharm Systems to ensure that Comprehend Clinical™ is fully Title 21 CFR Part 11 compliant. The company also recently closed $1.2 million in seed round funding for ongoing development of Comprehend Clinical™.

About Comprehend Systems, Inc.

Comprehend Systems, Inc. (www.comprehend.com) offers clinical data visualization, analytics and reporting software that improves the way clinical researchers access, understand, explore and analyze data. Designed specifically for clinical researchers, Comprehend Clinical™ enables data managers, monitors and clinical operations executives to identify broad operational and clinical trends across trials and also easily drill down and report on a wide range of factors, including safety issues, regulatory requirements and opportunities for critical time and cost savings. Comprehend Systems was founded in 2010 in Palo Alto by a team of entrepreneurs with decades of combined experience in clinical research and software development.

Contact

Susan McCarron
617.986.5767
susan@comprehend.com

PALO ALTO, CALIF. – November 8, 2011 – Driven by increasing demand from drug and medical device developers for cost-effective and user-friendly data analytics tools, Comprehend Systems, Inc. closed $1.2 million in seed round funding to support further development of Comprehend Clinical™, its clinical data visualization and analytics software. The round included contributions from Y Combinator, Start Fund, SV Angel, Yuri Milner, Menlo Ventures Talent Fund, Paul Buchheit, Garry Tan, Quotidian Ventures and Crosslink Capital, as well as a range of other angel investors with clinical research and enterprise sales expertise.

Tweet this: Comprehend (@Comprehend) raises $1.2MM for next stage growth, including @Ycombinator, SV Angel, Yuri Milner, and others http://bit.ly/w5d02y

“The application of business informatics and analytics is relatively new to clinical research, and the visualization and reporting tools available today are either cumbersome and costly to implement or not tailored to meet the needs of this industry, which comes with complex regulatory requirements,” said Rich Enz, investor and advisor. “Backed by decades of experience in clinical research, Comprehend is working to fill a critical market need for customized tools that easily work with existing systems and enable sponsors to be more effective and strategic with their clinical data.”

Comprehend Systems was founded in 2010 with a mission to improve the way clinical research sponsors access, understand, explore and analyze data. The company has already filed multiple patents for its technology. Its first software product, Comprehend Clinical™, easily integrates study data from any source – from electronic data capture (EDC), to safety, to clinical trial management systems (CTMS) – into one visualization and analytics platform. Designed specifically for clinical researchers, the tool enables data managers, monitors and clinical operations executives to identify broad operational and clinical trends across trials and also easily drill down and report on a wide range of factors, including safety issues, regulatory requirements and opportunities for critical time and cost savings. Features include simple drag-and-drop ad-hoc reporting, elegant and powerful dashboards, and intelligent drilldown.

“The pharmaceutical industry has invested billions of dollars in technologies to collect and protect their clinical data – one of their most vital assets. But while tools like EDC and CTMS have matured, and CROs have become technology-savvy, sponsors still struggle to maximize the value of all that data in an easy, cost-effective way that enables them to make smarter, faster decisions about their clinical trials,” said Rick Morrison, CEO of Comprehend Systems. “As we move into our next stage of growth, we’re looking to continue to build momentum around our solution and work with sponsors and CROs to put data from across the clinical trial process at their fingertips.”

After beta-testing with pharmaceutical companies and academic research organizations, Comprehend will use this round of funding to introduce new features and functionality based on customer feedback. Comprehend also recently secured several advisory board members who will play a key role in driving corporate, product and sales strategy, including:

• Marc L. Abramowitz – Private investor with extensive experience in the health care services and device industry;
• Rich Enz – Over 35 years clinical systems software development experience;
• Alex Sefanov – Founder and CEO of life sciences IT consulting company BioPharm Systems;
• Kirill Sheynkman – Managing Director of RTP Ventures, three-time founder and CEO of software companies including Plumtree Software and Elastra; and
• Garry Tan – Co-founder of Posterous and venture partner at Y Combinator.

About Comprehend Systems, Inc.

Comprehend Systems, Inc. (www.comprehend.com) offers clinical data visualization, analytics and reporting software that improves the way clinical researchers access, understand, explore and analyze data. Designed specifically for clinical researchers, Comprehend Clinical™ enables data managers, monitors and clinical operations executives to identify broad operational and clinical trends across trials and also easily drill down and report on a wide range of factors, including safety issues, regulatory requirements and opportunities for critical time and cost savings. Comprehend Systems was founded in 2010 in Palo Alto by a team of entrepreneurs with decades of combined experience in clinical research and software development.

Contact

Susan McCarron
617.986.5767
susan@comprehend.com

We’ve put together a presentation that describes how a CRO could benefit from Comprehend Clinical. Below are some example slides, and if you’d like to download the full presentation, for free, just fill out the form below.

…and even proprietary EDC or other in-house systems, without moving the data.

Placebos are typically defined as physiologically inactive substances that elicit a therapeutic response. For example, placebo analgesia, or pain relief, is an example of the cognitive modulation of pain perception. The opposite of a placebo effect is a “nocebo” effect, where unpleasant symptoms such as adverse events arise after the administration of placebo. Placebos have also been used as interventions. For example, a recent study showed that factors contributing to placebo effect can be combined to produce statistically and clinically significant outcomes. In this article, we describe these and other issues related to the assessment of placebo and therapeutic effects with a focus on applications in data analysis.

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