Covance Launches XcellerateTM to Increase Clinical Trial Optimization

Increasing the speed of bringing important medicines from the research phase to patients who need them is a driving objective for today’s global biopharmaceutical companies.  Covance Inc. is launching Xcellerate,^TM a proprietary methodology designed to help optimize clinical trial performance in order to assist biopharmaceutical companies in improving quality, reducing waste, and decreasing trial timelines.
 
Specifically, the Xcellerate methodology enables Covance to make custom recommendations on site, investigator, and geographic selections for every program it manages, and to help enhance clinical trial design and execution.  Xcellerate is not a stand-alone service offering, but is embedded in Covance’s approach to clinical trial management.
 
Xcellerate Clinical Trial Optimization^TMXcellerate harnesses the power of a large clinical trial knowledgebase, unique data analysis methods, and Covance’s scientific and operational expertise.  This can improve the selection of higher performing investigators and sites, more accurately forecast patient enrollment, and more effectively help clients avoid costly delays. Through the application of Xcellerate methodology, companies should experience higher quality and faster delivery with less waste, thereby extracting more value from their clinical investment.
 
Xcellerate Success in Practice
Typically in cancer clinical studies across the industry, the number of low and non-enrolling sites (defined as the enrollment of 0 or 1 patient per site) averages approximately 54 percent, which can cost a biopharmaceutical company $50,000 per site. In a cancer study using Xcellerate methodology and a robust dataset, Covance reduced the low and non-performing sites to under 14 percent for this single portfolio, resulting in significant time and cost savings for the client.  Xcellerate also significantly contributed to the recent completion of a portfolio study seven months ahead of its recruitment target date.
 
Additionally, a long Phase III respiratory clinical study with a number of pharmaceutical companies vying for the same patients presented a unique set of challenges to Covance’s client: recruiting patients and retaining investigator and patient interest in the study. Through Xcellerate, Covance was able to help the client finish patient enrollment ahead of target and minimize disruption to investigator sites and their regular activities. This gave the trial a competitive edge in investigator uptake and site enrollment. As a single provider, Covance created synergy across multiple data streams from multiple vendors, helping keep this complex trial on track.