New collaboration to enhance incorporation of the patient’s perspective into the evaluation of new medical treatments
Tucson, Arizona, June 1, 2011– Critical Path Institute (C-Path) has established the Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome (ePRO) Consortium comprising five member firms that provide innovative electronic data collection technologies for capturing patient-reported outcome (PRO) endpoints in clinical trials.
The founding members of the ePRO Consortium, CRF Health, ERT, ICON, invivodata, and PHT, will work collectively in a non-competitive, neutral environment to develop guidelines for the adaptation of PRO measures to the appropriate ePRO solutions.
PRO questionnaires are designed to capture information directly from patients on how they are feeling, functioning, and responding to new medical treatments that are being tested. As patient-reported endpoints have become increasingly incorporated into clinical trials, the need for better measures of the patient’s experience has become even more critical. Recent advances in electronic data collection technologies are providing more efficient ways of collecting PRO data, and may include handheld or tablet computers, and telephone-based systems.
The ePRO Consortium also will work closely with C-Path’s PRO Consortium, a group of 25 pharmaceutical companies working to develop novel PRO measures, to make the new measures available in multiple data collection formats.
The mission of the ePRO Consortium is to advance the quality, practicality, and acceptability of electronic data collection methods for PRO endpoint assessment in clinical trials. J. Jason Lundy, PhD, current Assistant Director of C-Path’s PRO Consortium, has been appointed as Director of the ePRO Consortium. The ePRO Consortium held its inaugural Coordinating Committee meeting on May 22, 2011 in Baltimore, MD.
About Critical Path Institute (C-Path)
An independent, non-profit organization established in 2005 with public and private philanthropic support from the Southern Arizona community, Science Foundation Arizona (SFAz), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), C-Path is committed to improving health and saving lives by accelerating the development of safe, effective medicines. An international leader in forming collaborations around this mission, C-Path has established global, public-private partnerships that currently include over 1,000 scientists from government regulatory agencies, academia, patient advocacy organizations, and thirty five major pharmaceutical companies. C-Path is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, with offices in Phoenix, Arizona, and Rockville, Maryland. For more information, visit www.c-path.org.
