While the core of innovation in the pharma industry is clinical research, there are several challenges that plague clinical trials and researches. Some of the biggest challenges are increasing costs, workforce, required resources, patient access and the complexity of the research.
While technology is helping improve efficiency in every sector, there is a group of doctors that believe that the pharma industry too, needs technology adoption to improve the efficiency, quality and costs incurred in clinical operations.
Founded in February 2016, Transformative Pharmaceutical Solutions, as the name suggests, wants to do just that.
“What we are trying to do is, using tech platforms and processes, we are trying to help pharma companies conduct clinical trial in very cost effective way, efficient way so that a product comes to the market faster. Collectively, the founding group from TPS came from various areas in the Pharmaceutical Industry. Based on our experience and aspirations, we knew we had the right people so we set about creating and developing the processes and technology to really make a difference.,” says Nivedita Parwatkar, who heads the India operations of TPS.
TPS is a tech-driven startup that offers customized solutions to pharmaceutical companies in terms of people, process and technologies, from offering trained resources, to providing technology platforms using advanced analytics and innovative processes for effective conduct of clinical trials globally.
The focus is on three areas. First is the process. TPS has developed comprehensive, documented, intuitive workflows that enable functional groups to communicate, track and manage all actions within the clinical trial process. The idea is to give the sponsor (pharma companies) informed control, which delivers enhanced quality while driving a significant decrease in R&D cost.
Next is technology to ensure problems are predicted and not identified. It has built a proprietary risk Assessment Platform and Targeted Operational Response System (RAPTOR℠). Its predictive algorithms allow clients to move from issue management (re-active) to risk management (pro-active).
Finding the right kind of workforce is a huge challenge that affects clinical trials. Through its internal niche recruitment engines, TPS builds teams based on custom client requirements, including therapeutic and operational expertise. Each TPS employee is hand-selected by the Sponsor and fully dedicated for the duration of the program.
With a focus on processes, technology and people, TPS offers customised solutions to customers based on their current infrastructure. It tailor-makes the solution depending on their needs. Nivedita says that the purpose is to make the research or clinical trial of a pharma company more efficient by integrating its tech into their existing infrastructure for maximum output in a minimal time.
It also offers a Risk Based Monitoring solution called integrated Adaptive Monitoring (iAM). “iAM addresses all aspects of Quality Risk Management through the incorporation of people, process and technology thus yielding the greatest impact on quality, effectiveness and savings,” she adds.
There are also other solutions such as Site Standardization Platform, Adaptive Site Management, which helps enable transparency between site operations and Sponsor directives.
And since it also helps with providing personnel for clinical trials, TPS offers a web-based training platform to ensure FDA compliance, proficiency and performance.
TPS works on a purely B2B model where pharma companies are its clients. It charges it clients for the services offered.
With eight clients, TPS is headquartered out of Pennsylvania in the US with three offices in India in Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Kolkata. It is also a part of Hyderabad-based startup incubator T-Hub.
Nivedita says that most of its clients are currently based out of the US as some of the largest pharma companies, conducting large researches are based out of the US.
There are also several other companies providing similar solutions. There are several Contract Research Organizations offering services to Pharmaceuticals in different domains. Nivedita says that while all of these are surely competitors, what differentiates TPS is its innovative processes and technology platforms that are tailor-made for every pharma company that it works with.
For TPS, the idea is that with the development of new technologies, it is high time that the pharma industry breaks its conventional methodology. “And that’s why we are here to offer the pathbreaking solutions. The solutions are in variants of people, process and technology which helps pharma to improve efficiency, quality and cost incurred in clinical operations,” Nivedita adds.
The next step in the business for TPS is to bring on board more clients and to keep innovating in the pharma industry and adapting while implementing the solutions.
In the long term, it wants to be the industry leader in offering innovative solutions to pharmaceuticals which improve the efficiency and quality of clinical trials with cost effectiveness.