Industry Expert Identifies ClearTrial Methodology as the "Most Accurate" for Building Clinical Study Budgets

Activity-based costing shown to hold significant advantages when compared with other clinical study costing methods

CHICAGO, IL – March 15, 2011

ClearTrial, the leading provider of software for the planning, forecasting, and tracking of clinical project and financial performance, today announced that in a comparison of five clinical study costing methods, activity-based costing – the foundation of ClearTrial software – received accolades for superior budget and resource demand accuracy.  Appearing in the February 2011 issue of Life Science Leader magazine, the article "An Assessment of 5 Clinical Study Costing Methods" presents an in-depth analysis of the leading approaches sponsor companies are using to cost clinical studies.

Drawing on more than 20 years of experience in clinical operations, author Kenneth Wu carefully weighs the pros and cons of each costing method.  In the section on activity-based costing software like that provided by ClearTrial, Wu makes several important points:

• One of the key advantages of activity-based costing software is that it is the most accurate: within 90% of actual spend when few clinical assumptions are known, and up to 97% accurate when detailed assumptions are entered.
  
• It also gives transparency to the clinical assumptions on cost drivers and enables better forecasting of costs and FTE demand based on when the work will actually occur.
  
• The most powerful benefit with activity-based costing software is its ability to quickly generate “what-if” scenarios for planning purposes.

The article goes on to caution readers, however, against generic activity-based costing software for clinical study planning and budgeting.  Wu maintains that to be effective for this purpose, the software must be able to adjust estimates based on user input, therapeutic area and indication, number and locations of study sites, and a host of other factors.  This built-in "clinical intelligence" is one of the hallmarks of ClearTrial software.

Informed comments by a sponsor, quoted in the article, are also noteworthy.  One example: “What we’ve found is that activity-based costing software supports planning best practices. Since it takes a ‘bottom-up’ approach, it forces the discipline at the sponsor level to really think through the study’s operational design and protocol objectives early in the planning process, avoiding potentially costly errors associated with an unforeseen final contract amount."

Complimentary reprints of "An Assessment of 5 Clinical Study Costing Methods" are available at http://info.cleartrial.com/Costing-CT.html.

About ClearTrial®

ClearTrial is the leading provider of Clinical Trial Operations (CTO) software, an integrated system for clinical operations planning, forecasting, outsourcing, and project tracking. ClearTrial’s award-winning software helps life sciences companies streamline their clinical operations from Plan to Payment™ without sacrificing quality of results, providing executives and functional leaders in clinical operations, resource planning, finance, outsourcing, and project management with a common platform that promotes speed, accuracy, and consistency throughout the organization. For more information visit http://www.cleartrial.com.

ClearTrial® and the ClearTrial logo are registered trademarks owned by ClearTrial, LLC, which may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Any other company or product names mentioned in this release are hereby acknowledged as registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

For more information contact:

Mike Lange
ClearTrial
+1 630.986.9800 x112
mlange@cleartrial.com