Clariness Opens New Office in the US

01.12.2009 – With the opening of a new office in the USA, Clariness is now also represented in the largest market for clinical studies. The rapidly growing demand in North and South America requires a stronger presence in the region.

Clariness, Europe’s largest provider of innovative services specifically designed for patient recruitment and clinical research, is pleased to announce the opening of a new office in the United States. Clariness, using its internet platform ClinLife (www.clinlife.net), is successfully recruiting in 16 countries in Europe and North America. Clariness will also open portals in 4 to 6 other countries in 2010, some of which will be located in South America.

With the establishment of an American branch in Princeton, New Jersey, Clariness will have the opportunity to use its innovative and cost-efficient strategies to assist the growing number of clients in the North American region with their patient-recruitment needs. American clients already account for a large portion of the company’s business volume.

“Both North and South America carry out a large number of clinical studies, and as such, are regions with a lot of potential for Clariness,” says Michael Stadler, CEO of Clariness Holding AG. “Last year saw a lot of growth for the company, especially in the US. In order to be geographically closer and to offer even better services, we have happily made the decision to take this important step. Although the growth rate for patient-recruitment services is higher in Europe, America has by far the largest market. Clinical studies are being conducted globally and in order to better support our clients, Clariness will strengthen its presence in this important region. Expanding our services to North America is another step in our global strategy.”

Clariness Finishes Large International Project

25.10.2009 – Recruitment for two international clinical trials was successfully completed more than 3 months ahead of schedule. The internet platform ClinLife worked in 10 countries for Merz Pharmaceuticals.

To better support international clinical studies, in 2006 Clariness expanded the services of its internet platform ClinLife (www.clinlife.net) to multiple countries in their respective national languages. Merz Pharmaceuticals took early advantage of our multilingual capabilities and enlisted our services for two large, international phase III clinical trials. Those trials have now been successfully completed. Clariness assisted clinical trial centers by creating an efficient recruitment strategy and by contacting potential volunteers via its internet platform ClinLife.

Clariness was responsible for helping to recruit patients for two separate trials concerning diseases of the central nervous system. These multi-center trials were held in 10 different countries with a required total of 800 randomized volunteers. “We estimate that around one third of all the randomized patients were recruited through the services of ClinLife. As a result of our collaboration with Clariness, the recruitment for both studies was successfully completed more than 3 months earlier than originally planned,” says Dr. Alev Heilbronn, Clinical Study Manager at Merz Pharmaceuticals. Clariness developed and introduced the recruitment platform ClinLife in all of the participating countries, organized an online campaign and forwarded the volunteers automatically to the relevant clinical trial centers. During the course of the recruitment, Clariness kept in close contact with the trial centers to ensure a smooth process of operation.

Clariness considers itself a close partner of its clients and as such, its software-based services cater to their needs. The information systems developed by Clariness, including the ClinLife platform and predefined workflows, all work together to minimize the complexity of patient-recruitment measures within clinical trial centers. This leads to more transparency and efficiency.

ClinLife Active in 14 Countries

12.01.2009 - At the end of 2008 ClinLife has been launched within 8 further European countries, the United States & Canada. Now ClinLife has been extended to a total of 14 countries in Europe and North America.

3 years ago Clariness developed ClinLife, an Internet platform for clinical research in Germany, to speed up the recruitment for clinical trial participants. The plat-form, that mainly addresses patients, has been so successful, that it also was established in Austria, Switzerland and UK. In 2008 ClinLife exceeded the 1 million visitors mark. 50,000 have regis-tered for the ClinLife clinical trial data-base.

It was just a matter of time until ClinLife finally became pan-European: “Due to the very successful patient re-cruitment with ClinLife in Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Austria, our customers have encouraged us to expand our services to further countries. This has been achieved until the end of 2008. The initial results exceeded our expectations, by far. Clinical studies are carried out globally, and we want to support our customers with it. A major step towards this goal has been achieved", explains Michael Stadler, Managing Director of Clariness Holding. The implementation of the European solution was accomplished during the 2nd half of 2008, in mid-December it was completed by the launch of the ClinLife platforms in North America.

Shortly after the start in the new European countries the success became clear. Not only in Poland, were the local ClinLife platform has generated a massive amount of applications even within the first two month, but also in France, the Netherlands and Spain impressive results were achieved. This was the proof that ClinLife is an internationally successful and usable product for patient recruitment via the Internet, across Europe. One of the most encouraging aspects is that the costs of recruiting a patient are significantly lower than the cost of traditional newspaper ads.

ClinLife U.S. & Canada online: Existing customers, for which Clariness already performed the patient recruitment in Europe, were the cause for the additional leap abroad. Even after a few months, our customers realized clearly that European sites have developed a huge advantage in the recruitment of study participants. The ClinLife success has now been exported and established in the U.S. and in Canada.

The Internet has become one of the most important sources for health information. More than 90% of all internet users, or some 300 million, have searched for information on health topics. Worldwide more people learn about the conduct of clinical trials through the Internet than through their physician.

The benefits of a strategically planned and centrally organized patient re-cruitment shows in a faster and suc-cessfully completed study.

ZDF Morgenmagazin

18.07.2008 - An excellent report on clinical trials in Germany was featured on ZDF Morgenmagazin this morning. The report focuses on the benefits and risks of participating in trials for study volunteers and uses ads for ClinLife, Clariness’s Internet study publication platform, as a backdrop. The report features the investigator site Emovis, a Clariness Partner Site in Berlin.

» [ZDF Morgenmagazin - 2 min 48 sec]

Clariness presents ClinLife at CeBIT 2008

05.03.2008 - As part of the televised presentation series “IT and Health” at Intel’s CeBIT pavilion, Clariness’ Nils Drews discussed the role of the Internet in clinical trials from a patient’s perspective, and how ClinLife, Clariness’ Internet-based clinical trial platform, can help pharmaceutical companies address issues of site selection and patient recruitment.

» [Movie - 22 min 39 sec - 53.0 MB, in German]

Clariness’ European clinical research platforms are unified and renamed to ClinLife

13.12.2007 - In an effort to unify the European services of Clariness, the company is renaming its various regional Internet sites to ClinLife (http://www.clinlife.eu/). This provides a common entry point to its Internet-based clinical research platform and simplifies recognition for patients, investigators and sponsors.

The different country specific customizations of Clariness’ successful internet platform remain, and are accessible via the different country extensions in the URL. The regional names (i.e. Klinische Forschung Deutschland, Clinical Trials United Kingdom, Klinische Forschung Austria, Studien Schweiz) are now to be found under ClinLife.

European Founders Fund acquires a stake in Clariness

01.10.2007 - European Founders Fund (EFF), specializing in venture capital of Internet companies and run by the Samwer brothers, has acquired a stake in Clariness. The brothers Oliver, Marc and Alexander Samwer are known as the highly successful serial entrepreneurs behind Alando (ebay Germany) and Jamba!, and more recently as investors in Studi-VZ and Linked-In.

The stake in Clariness secures EFF participation in one of the fastest growing areas of the health care sector, the clinical trials patient recruiting business, valued at $7 billion, and still in its infancy in Europe. The partnership allows Clariness to expand its revolutionary clinical research platform KFD into more European countries and allows Clariness to benefit from the Samwers’ unmatched experience in building successful Internet enterprises.

Interview with Nils Drews

30.08.2007 - Nils Drews, responsible for Sales and Marketing at Clariness, discusses patient recruitment via the Internet in an interview for the August edition of DGPharMed.
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