Chorus Pharma Makes Clinical Trial Budgets More Precise, Less Variable and Enhances Clinical Trial Value Proposition
 
 

Chorus Pharma Makes Clinical Trial Budgets More Precise, Less Variable and Enhances Clinical Trial Value Proposition

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Chorus Pharma, a division of Eli Lilly and Company, was launched to transform the traditional drug development process through a lean approach to generating clinical proof of concept (PoC) data, with a more flexible and virtually-outsourced model. The objective was clear: achieve the maximum change on the probability of technical success through PoC by adding value as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.

Chorus, now an important part of Eli Lilly’s fully-integrated pharmaceutical network strategy, operates much like a lean biotechnology company within the walls of a larger biopharmaceutical company. It has helped to reduce both the time and cost of drug development for PoC, resulting in substantial productivity improvements over traditional pharmaceutical development.

The group’s founders, who were very experienced in sourcing clinical trials, created a series of spreadsheet-based budgeting tools, which Chorus used to determine the value and cost of its services. As Chorus began to grow and handle more studies for Eli Lilly, as well as external clients, it looked for a more robust tool that would enable incorporating more granular data, with the goal of reducing budget variances. It also wanted a more flexible tool that would be suited for different types of trials and could relieve the internal team of tedious budget tool maintenance.

Chorus Pharma selected Oracle Health Sciences ClearTrial Plan and Source Standard Edition Cloud Service and is using it to manage approximately 15 trials each year. With the new system, Chorus has replaced maintenance-intensive, spreadsheet-based budget tools with more granular, automated models, reducing budget variance to 5% to 10%, when it previously had been up to 20%. The group also gained flexibility to bid a broader array of trials, delivering additional value to internal and external clients.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Chorus Pharma

  • "Oracle Health Sciences Clear Trial Plan and Source Cloud Service has enabled us to bring new levels of precision to our budget models―heightening the value proposition that we bring to our internal and external clinical trial clients.” – Ken Olovich, RPh, MBA, Chief Procurement and Financial Officer, Chorus Pharma

  • Introduce a more efficient and accurate way to determine fair market value for the group’s early-phase clinical trial services
  • Enable more accurate trial budgets, reducing variability that could be as high as 20%
  • Improve the group’s ability to market its services to external life sciences organizations
  • Enable team members to focus on the group’s core mission, as opposed to maintaining budget model algorithms and spreadsheets

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Selected Oracle Health Sciences ClearTrial Plan and Source Standard Edition Cloud Service as the group’s clinical budgeting and contract research organization sourcing tool, replacing maintenance-intensive, spreadsheet-based models and reducing budget variances to 5% to 10%, when they previously could be as much as 20%
  • Improved budget accuracy with more granular data and what-if modeling
  • Gained the ability to handle a broader range of study situations, including mega trials, expanding the group’s offerings for internal and external clients
  • Improved ability to document assumptions and deliver a more professional presentation of complex clinical trial budget information, improving positioning when marketing to prospective clients
  • Leveraged greater transparency into budget assumptions to enable more open and fact-based discussions that lead to better plans
  • Expanded insight to optimize the productivity of site monitoring visits, avoiding over-budgeting and overspending while ensuring compliance
  • Eliminated the need to manually update algorithms and maintain complex spreadsheets, freeing team members for other strategic priorities
  • Improved archiving process with version-control capabilities

Why Oracle

“We wanted a system that eliminated tedious spreadsheet maintenance and could provide the level of budget granularity we required,” said Ken Olovich, chief procurement and financial officer, Chorus Pharma. “Other commercial tools simply could not deliver the level of detail that ClearTrial could. And, the system was easy to use-and navigate, which helped to jumpstart user adoption and improve productivity. The pages are intuitive. All of the information is grouped logically on various tabs.”

Implementation Process

The implementation was rapid and seamless. Chorus Pharma had the system up and running in a month.