The August 21 eclipse made the entire United States pause, if only for a few minutes to reflect on the celestial event that happens so rarely. Many have never seen a total eclipse in their lifetime (and may never again). The last time I saw one was back in 1979—through a pinhole in an index card at elementary school.

Back then there were no eTMFs, no fancy SSU solutions, and the only clouds we knew of were up in the sky. Clinical trials were centered around paper, binders, and manual trackers. Oh, what a different world it is today. Over the last four decades, disruptive innovation and technology advancements not only progressed research and development, but also produced the e-clinical solutions that are now commonplace. Representing a major leap forward for the industry, these technologies promised greater efficiency, reduced costs, and faster time to market. Yet, it was only around 2007 that anything close to a majority of life sciences companies started embracing EDC for the collection of subject data—and it’s taken the ensuing decade for e-clinical technology to become SOP.

The industry has come a long way in 10 years, and so has TransPerfect’s Trial Interactive solution. Today, we offer a complete suite of e-clinical solutions for a unified and streamlined clinical trial process. Be it our E-Feasibility and study start-up solutions for your site identification and activation needs, a fully integrated eTMF and document management system, or a learning management system to improve training and documentation practices, each solution has been developed in conjunction with our clients to ensure smoother execution of all study activities in a validated and compliant environment throughout all phases of clinical research. As the industry continues to move away from paper-based binders, having a compliant and inspection ready eTMF is more important than ever.

This is the era of artificial intelligence, patient centricity, and big data—and there has never been a better time for global innovation. While we are constantly enhancing our e-clinical platform and improving the user interface to ensure that you have the most state-of-the-art solutions available at your fingertips, our aim is to always go back to the drawing board with an attitude of, “What more can we do and what can be done even better?”

Thank you for continuing to be an important part of this journey. We have some very exciting things planned for later in 2017 and beyond. We look forward to continuing to provide advanced technology and process efficiencies to help you run efficient, compliant, and hopefully paperless clinical trials. With any luck, we’ll all get there before the next total solar eclipse.