Preclinical and clinical testing data has traditionally been collected by pharmaceuticals, but following the larger trend, this data collection is now being outsourced. One company responsible for converting data into medical knowledge is Capish Inc., the subsidiary of Capish International, a Swedish concern that just announced its first US offices will be located in Philadelphia.
Eva Kelty, CFO of Capish, says that prior to signing on with the
University City Science Center, the company had a virtual presence in the US, and will start by moving one employee over from Sweden. He will set up operations, and the plan is to recruit both project managers and programmers.
Capish develops software that manages, evaluates and visualizes clinical data for the effective storage and retrieval of data collected in drug development, clinical trials, government agencies and healthcare service organizations.
"Our approach is patient based, and that's rather unusual," says Kelty. This perspective allows researchers to look across studies and across patients to get information about the whole picture about safety issues and effectiveness of testing.
Kelty cites Philadelphia's usual selling points -- proximity to major US pharmaceutical headquarters, as well as the easy commute to regulatory entities in Washington DC and financial backers in New York. Capish is part of the Science Center's
Global Soft Landing program. Philadelphia is the first step of a planned nationwide expansion.
Source: Eva Kelty, Capish Inc.
Writer: Sue Spolan