Multimedia Reporter
Patricia Mirasol
The latest coronavirus epidemic has created widespread alarm across the world. Like SARS and MERS, Covid-19 is thought to originate in animals before migrating to humans. At least 28 international locations have confirmed cases of the infection, with mainland China being the most affected country. 3,173 deaths have been reported thus far.
All sectors of society are working to overcome the challenges of this public health emergency. One of the keys to control the outbreak is to accelerate research, development, and access to practical treatment with drugs that are effective against Covid-19. The completion of relevant clinical trials with efficiency and high quality is crucial for drug development. Industry, academia, and government parties are making unremitting efforts to pursue solutions with antiviral drugs.
For its part, IBM is taking steps to help hospitals, sponsors, contract research organizations (CROs), and research and development institutions in China that are researching novel coronavirus drugs and conducting related clinical trials. IBM intends to work together with medical institutions and practitioners during this critical period by leveraging its IBM Clinical Development (ICD) system to help support the accelerated development of key drugs in combating the virus.
ICD is a unified SaaS-based data capture solution, designed to provide end-to-end visibility as well as patient, site, and clinical trial management capabilities. ICD is designed to reduce the time and cost of clinical trials by centralizing and organizing clinical trial details, providing 24/7 access to clinical trial data via a single URL from any web-enabled device, and providing a flexible and scalable data management platform to help design and manage clinical trials through the incorporation of optional clinical trial-specific features and services.
Free of charge
As part of IBM’s plan to support the accelerated development of key drugs to combat the coronavirus, the company will:
- provide its ICD system free of charge to eligible applicable novel coronavirus-related clinical trials in China; and
- provide commercially-reasonable technology free of charge to support database construction and basic training for the use of ICD.
IBM welcomes inquiries from hospitals, sponsors, CROs, and institutions that are researching Covid-19 drugs and conducting related clinical trials.
IBM shared that they salute all medical staff frontliners, paying tribute to the scientific researchers who are leading the charge of pharmaceutical research and development.
With its medical technology, IBM is dedicated to working with pharmaceutical R&D partners in providing relevant coordinated research and analysis on ICD for Covid-19 clinical trials to help overcome challenges together.
