CMIC Co., Ltd., a Japanese contract research organization (CRO), and Lokavant, a clinical trial intelligence company, have entered into an agreement to leverage Lokavant’s predictive analytics capabilities to support CMIC’s clinical operations. Lokavant Oversight, a monitoring and operational risk management platform, will be deployed across CMIC studies through this strategic partnership.
 
CMIC says it was the first company to provide CRO services in Japan and has over 28 years of pharmaceutical development experience in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. More than 80% of new drug development in Japan is supported by CMIC Group. The agreement between CMIC and Lokavant represents one of the first predictive analytics partnerships for clinical trial operations in the growing APAC market.
 
“We are thrilled to be more proactive in study management and expand our global footprint by entering into this agreement to partner with Lokavant,” said Yoshihito Kondo, executive vice president of clinical operations, CMIC. “This strategic relationship, centered around Lokavant’s deep data science and predictive capabilities in trial execution, will ensure that CMIC continues to be a leader with a focus on technology and innovation.”
 
As the number of data points collected in clinical trials has grown exponentially, managing trials has become increasingly difficult and inefficient. The process for identifying and managing risks in trials is still largely manual and often too slow to mitigate serious impacts. CMIC and Lokavant’s partnership goes beyond traditional risk-based monitoring by deploying an end-to-end solution powered by Lokavant’s historical operational data as well as CMIC’s own data. This will equip CMIC to conduct next-generation risk-based monitoring that can predict data quality issues, study timeline delays, and budget overruns. By using historical data to predict future issues, CMIC clinical teams will be able to be proactive, not reactive, in mitigating issues and ultimately improving trial outcomes. Lokavant and CMIC will also co-develop data-driven metrics to track study performance across historical and ongoing CMIC studies, providing key insights to CMIC’s 1,200+ clinical trial operators.
 
Rohit Nambisan, president, Lokavant, said, “Lokavant is excited to deploy our machine learning-driven applications, which will enable CMIC to predict and address trial risk. CMIC’s leading clinical development expertise and scale make them a great partner for Lokavant, and together we are excited to shift the paradigm in clinical trial operations in APAC, the US, and globally.”