A Medical Device Daily

Bio-Imaging Technologies (Orlando, Florida) and its Phoenix Data Systems division said it is rebranding the two companies under the name BioClinica, thereby completing the final stages of an operational merger that was begun a year ago.

According to the company, BioClinica combines electronic data capture (EDC) services and medical image management to offer a single, integrated solution that increases efficiency and decreases costs for pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies through all stages of clinical trials. BioClinica, as well, continues to provide traditional EDC and imaging core lab services to its customers.

"The new brand better represents what our customers require to succeed, integrated solutions that track and manage more of their clinical data," said Mark Weinstein, president/CEO of BioClinica. "The speed and accuracy of this combination helps to mend the current broken clinical trial process. We look forward to extending our Imaging Core Lab leadership with comprehensive EDC services, and helping life science companies to manage their clinical trials with greater efficiency, quality and improved data visibility."

According to BioClinica, medical imaging technologies generate more data than ever, requiring even more resources to manage and turn it into useful information. As the volume and the complexity of patient data increases exponentially, more expertise and better tools are required, from study start-up and initiation through data collection and the delivery of final results.

"We believe that the combination of Bio-Imaging and Phoenix Data Systems as BioClinica creates a powerful new voice in the clinical services space by combining superior customer service and expert consultative support for data image management and EDC... . BioClinica has an established history of reliability where many have failed," Weinstein said.

Stockholders will vote on the name change at the company's annual meeting. Until then, the company will operate under the BioClinica d/b/a.

In other dealmaking: Vocantas (Ottawa), a developer of automated telephone outreach products, reported the sale of its CallAssure solution to The Ottawa Hospital to manage patients in its thrombosis program.

Vocantas said the sale comes as a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal shows that CallAssure was effective in helping The Ottawa Hospital keep thrombosis patients in the proper dosing 80% of the time. In addition, the clinic experienced a 33% reduction in staff workload. It said that CallAssure may ultimately allow the program to efficiently manage the blood thinners of more than 10,000 patients in the region.

Thrombosis is a chronic disease characterized by the development of clots in blood vessels. Patients must maintain an optimal level of a blood-thinning agent in their bodies and so require regular blood testing that can indicate the need for possible and sometimes frequent, adjustments to their dosage of blood thinner.

CallAssures assists in managing the human interaction required to schedule testing, and reschedule when patients fail to show up, and then communicate the test results and any dosage change has meant that optimal disease management is often beyond what healthcare systems can afford. Patients without family doctors must often resort to hospital emergency rooms for their testing, and then they must wait there, often for hours, for the test results and dosage details.

Vocantas has used CallAssure to better manage chronic diseases, by alerting patients of upcoming test requirements and any changes to their care plan. By integrating with dosing technology, CallAssure informed patients immediately when their medication dosage is adjusted, the company said.