Richmond-based Slope on Tuesday announced it has rolled out new tech-enabled services to help pharmaceutical companies optimize operations and data involving biospecimens.
Its new platform puts information on inventory, sample collection, processing and shipment in one place, the company said, producing more high-quality data that can inform decisions and make clinical trials more efficient.
The process of clinical trials, which pharma companies must conduct to receive regulatory approval for new drugs and therapies, have become more complex and sample-intensive in recent years. Slope’s products aim to allow companies to conduct more organized and robust trials, with an focus on improving outcomes. Slope specializes in trials involving biospecimens — i.e., blood, tissue, urine, cells, DNA, RNA and more.
Slope says it has supported thousands of clinical trials and its services are utilized in the vast majority of National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers.
The Richmond company said its new professional services offerings are customizable and include guidance on protocol design, vendor selection, sample collection workflows, advanced monitoring of biospecimen movement and metadata, and management of that data to ensure the quality of clinical trials.
The new services ensure customers “are actualizing the immense value of their sample data,” Mark Melton, Slope’s vice president of biospecimen data and operations, said in a statement.
The announcement of the new services comes a couple months after Slope announced it was part of a new group called the Biospecimen Management Consortium that aims to push initiatives to develop industry standards and streamline operations in biospecimen lifecycle operations. Other founding members of the group include pharma giants like GSK PLC, Moderna Inc. and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.
Slope is serving as the host of the group “to provide a platform for the industry to discuss challenges, create best practices and help drive progress on its initiatives,” the company said in July.
