Exco InTouch (ERT) needed to grow their eCOA business in a more efficient, scalable way than the traditional strategy of expanding headcount to address increases in demand. To achieve this, they had identified an opportunity to create a new eCOA platform that reduced the project-by-project demand on highly skilled, expensive software engineering resources by designing a system that could be implemented by the Project Management Office (PMO).

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In addition, the risk-averse nature of the clinical trials industry meant that eCOA user-interfaces were typically very basic and outdated. Exco saw the opportunity to differentiate their offering through a consumer look and feel. This would provide a better experience for all users (sponsors, sites, and patients), but also enable the sales team to demonstrate the platform benefits clearly in customer meetings.

Exco InTouch had significant clinical research domain knowledge and understood how to improve the current eCOA study delivery process. However, they did not have the breadth of design and development experience to address the associated step-change in UI/UX that was essential to their strategy.

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Nuom provided the user design and development experience necessary to deliver Exco’s objectives. Prototyping was essential to the development process. Companies typically spend months doing a specification and then moving into development, but the agile methodology, with prototypes meant that whole process was streamlined to a few weeks. Additionally, the wireframe designs and prototypes were presented to the board to maintain their buy-in and gain approval to continue investment.

The Gather eCOA platform was a huge success for Exco InTouch, enabling them to accelerate sustainable growth and become the third largest eCOA provider globally.

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The platform resulted in a 50% reduction in study delivery time (16 weeks to 8 weeks) with reduced reliance on software development resources. It also provided a number of direct benefits for sponsors as study prototypes could be created within 2-3 weeks so sponsors could see the look and feel early on and share with their internal stakeholders well in advance of User Acceptance Testing.

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The templated approach also enabled Exco to provide Ethics/IRB screenshots in just one week following the kick-off meeting, which was a major improvement for sponsor teams who are under enormous pressure to meet First-Patient, First-Visit timelines.

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Finally, from a sales perspective, the user-centric design for both the patient facing applications and the back-end portal enabled Exco to engage customer in a different way, including demonstration of real-time study builds during customer meetings.