Palo Alto-based Comprehend Systems has expanded its reach in the clinical research space with a partnership with Merge Healthcare’s eClinical Solutions division. The integration of Comprehend Clinical with Merge’s eClinical OS will enable Merge’s growing base of sponsor and CRO customers to gain critical insights into end-to-end clinical and operational data, without the need for costly programming, data warehousing or business intelligence (BI) tools. 

Supporting more than 600 new clinical trials each year across all phases and therapeutic categories, Merge offers a cloud-based, comprehensive clinical trial platform, eClinical OS. As the eClinical OS adoption continues to grow at a rapid pace, Merge identified the opportunity to provide its customers with real-time data visualization and analysis tools. To address this critical need for streamlined and cost-efficient visibility into trial data, Merge will be able to provide its customers with data insights and reporting powered by Comprehend. 

“To ensure trials run safely and effectively, sponsors and CROs today need better access into all clinical data, but with the growing number of different systems and studies in play at any given time, that’s proven to be a costly and time-consuming endeavor,” said Zaher El-Assi, general manager of Merge eClinical. “Comprehend is the only company to address this issue with a cloud-based solution that can provide study teams with insights, visualizations and reports derived from data across any and all systems.”

Comprehend Clinical enables sponsors and CROs to achieve end-to-end awareness across all systems in order to make real-time decisions quickly and easily, without having to transfer data or implement additional analytics or BI tools that are often heavy and expensive. Through this partnership, Comprehend Clinical will now be available via Merge’s secure and user-friendly self-service portal, enabling executives, data managers, study managers, clinical operations, biostatisticians, monitors and others to access critical insights across all of their clinical and operational data.

“Merge’s approach to evolving the clinical research industry through cloud-based technology aligns well with our strategy to put data at researchers’ fingertips so they’re able to make faster, safer and more intelligent decisions about their trials,” said Rick Morrison, CEO of Comprehend Systems. The integrated solution will be available to Merge customers by July and will be offered at various levels and price points.