Symphony Goes Live!

We're very proud to announce that Symphony is now live. It's been a tough job but the development team have come up trumps!

So what's Symphony I hear you ask? Maybe if I give you the background to why we started PowerTrial it will all become clear...

I've been doing clinical research for quite a long time now (I have the grey hair 'badge of honour' to prove it!). My interest is in chronic myeloid leukaemia and the development of better drug therapy in this area. A few years ago I was setting up a trial and thought it would be a good idea to use web-based data collection. So I called a few companies and asked about the available web 'EDC' (Electronic Data Capture) systems that they made. They looked OK but not great. It struck me that a lot of them had not had enough involvement of clinicians and research nurses in the way they were built - too complex and 'techy' I thought. I'm pretty good at IT (our developers might disagree!) but I feel strongly that it should serve the people using it, not the other way round, so I was already thinking 'I could do that better...'

And then I asked how much these established systems cost...

Once I picked myself off the floor I thanked them kindly for the demonstration and that was the end of it. 'About $600,000' for one trial said one company. 'Can I build my own case report form myself on line?' I asked. 'Er, no...' came the reply - 'we'll have to do that for a fee.' In short, the systems were OK but pretty hard to use, fairly inflexible and cost way too much for me as an academic researcher to afford. 'I could do that better...' I thought again.

So we founded PowerTrial, a spin out company from Newcastle University. We began by building bespoke systems for a number of clients but my vision had always been to develop a web clinical study system 'for the rest of us'. Something friendly and easy to use that was much more affordable than current systems. With Symphony I think we've achieved that. I'll tell you more in the next blog.

Steve O'Brien  
Founder