Medidata may not yet be a household name, but with its impressive history working with the heavy hitters in the medical field, you can bet many healthcare executives know it well. Founded in 1999, Medidata is the top provider of software and analytics for medical clinical trials in the world. That means the company is capturing and analyzing trial data, supporting trial design, and managing workflows for numerous drug, biotech, and device companies.

Medidata has been a trendsetter, enabling data from mobile health devices to be incorporated into clinical trials. The company now supports secure data collection and auditing from several wearables, including offerings from Garmin, Vital Connect, ActiGraph, FitBit, and the Apple iWatch ResearchKit.

Researchers are only beginning to explore the potential clinical advantages of having access to patient behavioral and physiological data on a daily basis. Medidata is enabling this exploration.

Medidata took a big step forward this year, sponsoring its own pilot trial incorporating mHealth data. The MOVE-2014 study, which was conducted by Miami Research Associates and completed this year, showed that data gleaned from activity trackers could be safely sent to the Medidata Clinical Cloud platform and compliantly incorporated with other study data. This gives Medidata firsthand knowledge to assist clients who are apprehensive or curious about running a trial that includes mHealth data. This should accelerate the inclusion of mobile health data in future medical device trials.

[Image courtesy of MEDIDATA SOLUTIONS]