US-based CRO, Health Decisions, hopes to raise the efficacy standards for complex studies and help companies get products to market faster by establishing an international network of CROs.

"It's no surprise that, as development moves overseas, disparate systems and gaps in information inevitably drive up costs and prolong development timelines," Rick Farris, Health Decisions Chief Operations Officer, explained in a press statement. "This network will serve as an incredibly valuable resource to combat inefficiency in global clinical trials."

In the statement, Health Decisions claims that its proprietary Agile approach to clinical research forms "a set of best practices that consistently cuts trial timelines, increases transparency and delivers vastly improved results". The CRO has identified like-minded CROs worldwide and will be offering training, certification and partnership opportunities. Farris said: "Regardless of what they call it — Agile clinical development or otherwise — if they're comfortable with adaptive techniques in both design and operations, and pride themselves on relentless efficiency in clinical research, we want to talk to them."

The company's training programme, which will comprise Flash-based online courses, will primarily focus on adaptive operations that are easy to implement for all types of trials once the proper infrastructure is in place.

Farris added: "Our goal is to identify like-minded organizations worldwide that embrace the idea that we, as an industry, can run better global studies."

www.healthdec.com

A webcast from Health Decisions can be viewed here.