TNT develops online clinical service
New drugs could be brought to market more quickly if a web-based delivery service from international logistics group TNT Express lives up to expectations.
TNT has developed a system called the Clinical Trial Network (CTN). It allows doctors, drug companies and test laboratories to communicate more effectively when planning shipments of goods used in clinical trials.
Doctors can order courier services and specialist packaging, such as dry ice, with just four mouse clicks on a dedicated secure extranet.
From the moment the delivery is booked with TNT, the doctor can track the drug’s whereabouts, and laboratories can plan their workloads and allocate resources in advance.
CTN went live in Europe last year, and is about to be deployed globally.
The network could halve the time and cost of clinical trial logistics, says John Butterworth, global director for life sciences and industrial sectors at TNT.
Bringing a new drug to market takes an average of 14 years, and can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
‘We have high expectations,’ said Butterworth. ‘To bring a new pharmaceutical product to market costs $500m. One day of delay can cost $1m.’
Butterworth says the system eradicates many mistakes, and reduces margins, both factors in bringing drugs to market more quickly.
‘In many cases, the labs didn’t have much information about the volume or the frequency of deliveries. They were unable to plan their manpower.
From our side, we were finding information was not particularly accurate,’ he said.
The system is based on BEA’s WebLogic Server. TNT has invested EUR2m (GBP 1.3m) in CTN, and believes it has seen its business in the pharmaceutical sector increase by 20 per cent as a direct result.
SUMMARY
– TNT has developed a new web-based logistics system for clinical drug tests
– The system could bring drugs to the market more quickly
www.tnt.com.
