Clinical Trial Management and Remote Data Entry on the Internet

Despite the widespread use of information technology and communication advances in the pharmaceutical industry, there are still some steps of the clinical process, such as clinical data collection, that do not take advantage of this technological revolution. In order to verify if a new technology such as the Internet could both speed data capture and improve the overall quality of data, the Italian Glaxo Wellcome company and IBM have cosponsored a pilot project called CLINical Trial & Research Management via InterNET (CLINT&RNET). Within this joint project, IBM has developed the data capture Internet application and Glaxo Wellcome has handled the clinical and organizational aspects, always in compliance with regulatory laws. This paper summarizes the technical aspects of the project.