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Quartesian LLC |
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June 10, 2019 Issue |
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CEOCFO MAGAZINE |
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Global Premium Clinical Data Service Company, Quartesian LLC is providing Statistical Programming and Analysis, Data Management and Medical Writing Services for Biotech and Pharmaceutical Companies Conducting Clinical Trials |
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Co-Founder President and Chief Executive Officer
Quartesian LLC
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – June 10, 2019
CEOCFO: Mr. Jackson, what was the vision when you founded Quartesian, LLC and what is the idea today? Mr. Jackson: I co-founded the company with three other people; we had two people who were from India, one from the Ukraine and myself, from the United States. We thought that we could get into a niche area in our space with a blended onshore/offshore model. We started out offering competitively priced clinical data services. That was the vision sixteen years ago. However, today he vision is to build more on the onshore side and become a global premium clinical data service provider.
CEOCFO: Would you tell us about the range of services you offer? Mr. Jackson: We are in the clinical research space. Relatively speaking, I guess it is a narrow space, but it is a rather profitable space, given the aging population and the regulations for drug approval. We provide data management, statistical programming and analysis and medical writing services to biotech and pharmaceutical companies conducting clinical trials. For example, when these companies decide to bring a drug product to market, they are required to go through different phases of clinical trial testing, which require data to be collected in order to report the study results to the regulatory authorities, such as the US FDA.
Someone has to assure the data are accurate and in a format that complies with the guidelines for submitting data and study results to the regulatory authorities. Clients contract us to do these tasks. We also have our own e-clinical technology. That is technology that captures clinical trial data during the study conduct. We are also getting into the area of real world evidence exploring the efficacy and safety of bio-pharmaceutical products as they are actually prescribed to patients post approval.
CEOCFO: Why is now the time to be looking into new arenas? Mr. Jackson: The clinical trial space is rather limited and is a mature market dominated by the bigger players. We still fit into a nice niche area on and we could continue to stay there, but I think the opportunity is there for a company like ours to grow in a totally new space. Again, the big players also dominate there, but entry into that space is still possible.
CEOCFO: Why not? Are you working primarily with CROs? Are you working directly with a pharma company in development? Who is your customer today? Mr. Jackson: We are about roughly half and half with contract research organizations and bio-pharmaceutical companies. Because of our low-cost model and low overhead the larger CROs often come to us for staff augmentation to smooth out the ups and downs in their own staffing needs. We also work with CRO partners that are smaller players like ourselves, who do not have the data capabilities, but they are very strong in a particular therapeutic area.
We work with generic pharmaceutical companies and small to mid-size bio-pharmaceutical companies. We provide a low-cost premium data service to the generic companies, for whom cost containment is a primary concern and we provide the data service to the small to mid-sized bio-pharma who do not have such functions in house.
CEOCFO: How do you tailor a program to the particular client and how do you make sure everything is user friendly? Mr. Jackson: We get most of our business in the service space, so we are providing a service to clients, not so much a product, although we do have an eClinical product. The users are research coordinators at the clinic or research site who need to transcribe data from their medical source into our system. We developed a clinical data capture system that is first and foremost easy to navigate and very graphical and user friendly and uncomplicated. That particularly works well for the scope of studies that we do.
Another area that we are very strong in is in gathering and reporting analytics from clinical trials. A graphical dashboard allows the sponsor and the third party CRO, if that is the case, to monitor the progress of the trial and determine what sites are performing well, what sites may have issues, what sites require extra monitoring.
For the services we do, we strive to recruit senior level project managers that are a good point of contact and can serve as a bridge between the client and the people who may be managing the data or analyzing the data. Of course, on the analysis side we have senior onshore people who can consult on the clinical trial design and analysis of the study results.
CEOCFO: Would you tell us about the recent agreement with Medrio? Mr. Jackson: We have been a Medrio user for over a decade. We are one of their early adopters. They have a philosophy similar to ours, that is a user friendly and economical product. We decided to have an enterprise agreement since we know in any given year we will be licensing their product for several studies. Our clients often request Medrio for their study. They have been a good partner of ours and have a very good product.
CEOCFO: How do you reach out to potential customers? Mr. Jackson: We have a contracted inside sales group that dedicates about three days a week to calling potential customers. We are also doing a lot of work to optimize our website for organic search results, as well as paid advertising. We’ve added blogs, case studies and white papers to the web site. The web site is more interactive too.
We attend the major trade shows. The significant ones for us are the DIA (Drug Information Association), which is coming up in June in San Diego. We will be rolling out our new technology there and we are excited about that! We also attend the Society for Clinical Data Management meeting, which I believe is in Baltimore this year, in the fall. During the year we also network with clinical biopharma groups in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, since we are located in Princeton, New Jersey.
CEOCFO: How do you stand out at a conference when there are so many companies with so many ideas? Mr. Jackson: For this year, we have a new logo and new brand. We do not have as many sales people at a meeting as we have functional people who can engage and talk to interested buyers at technical level. Not that our sales people are not valuable – of course they are. However, we also come with a strong representation of functional people. We also do the other little things like, for example, this year we are offering guests espresso coffee and little giveaways. The kinds of things that everyone else does. The big thing is that we come with a group of people who can speak technically with potential buyers.
CEOCFO: Do you still see maintaining India as a source or do you see more of a shift into more onshore? Do potential customers care where the services are located? Mr. Jackson: India will always be an important resource for us. However, to work directly with the small to midsized biotech and pharmaceutical companies we need to have an onshore presence. We need to have senior level people who are project managers, statisticians and data managers; people who not only know the technical end, but also understand the client’s goals and strategy to get a successful study and eventually a submission of a new product for regulatory approval. We can stay in the generic space and in the third-party functional sourcing and work with non-data CROs, but in order to reach the small to midsized biotech and pharmaceutical companies directly, we have to have more onshore staff.
CEOCFO: Why the rebranding now? Mr. Jackson: We have not changed our brand in 16 years. The industry keeps changing and we need to change too. Our new branding message is “We are a premium clinical data services provider with locations around the world”.
CEOCFO: What, if anything, do people miss when they first look at Quartesian? Mr. Jackson: They probably miss the experience we have. We have worked on over 800 clinical studies and two thousand clinical research sites all over the world.
CEOCFO: What is the takeaway for our readers? Mr. Jackson: That Quartesian, LLC is a customer focused contract research organization specializing in data services that can give small to midsized biotech and pharmaceutical companies a premium service and global resources with a personal touch.
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“We are a premium clinical data services provider with locations around the world”. - Benjamin Jackson
Quartesian LLC
Contact: Benjamin Jackson 609-454-3312 Benjamin.jackson@quartesian.com
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Clinical Data Management, Quartesian LLC, Clinical Data Manager, Benjamin Jackson, Global Premium Clinical Data Service Company, Quartesian LLC is providing Statistical Programming and Analysis, Data Management and Medical Writing Services for Biotech and Pharmaceutical Companies Conducting Clinical Trials, CEO Interviews 2019, Medical/Biotech Companies, clinical data management, biostatistics, statistical programming, medical writing, SAS Services for FSPs, RAVE Services, RAVE certified trainers, Bioequivalence and Clinical Endpoint Studies for Generics, clinical data analytics, Medidata RAVE Expertise, data mapping, observational study analyses, Quartesian LLC Press Releases, News, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin |
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