SAS and SMS-oncology augment cancer research with analytics

SMS-oncology is an Amsterdam-based contract research organisation (CRO) that specialises in clinical cancer research. In addition to providing clinical and regulatory consultancy, the company’s core business is running clinical trials of new cancer treatments for pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

 

As the market for CRO outsourcing grows, SMS-oncology wanted to differentiate itself from the competition by helping its clients gain a deeper understanding of the results of trials.

 

The company chose SAS as a solutions provider for its proven track record in the life sciences sector, value-for-money solutions, and the local support that would be provided during implementation from SAS gold-tier and resell partner OCS Consulting.

 

More insight, more quickly

 

SMS-oncology selected both SAS® Office Analytics for Midsize Business and SAS® Visual Analytics to enhance its clinical trials.

 

Traditionally, the company collected its trial results in huge tables of numbers that could extend into thousands of pages. Extracting meaningful insight from this data was difficult and time-consuming, requiring hours of work in spreadsheets. In addition, data could not be readily available on an ad hoc basis.

 

However, with SAS’ solutions SMS-oncology is able to capture data and import it easily into SAS Visual Analytics. The software allows the company to quickly perform a large range of analyses on the raw data. It then generates eye-catching, easily explainable visualisations, helping users and clients understand the findings.

 

SAS’ approach more than doubles the speed of analysis for clinical data and, critically, enables SMS-oncology to interrogate findings while trials are still in progress. This helps the company spot and react to trends and anomalies faster, providing more effective care for patients in trials and giving clients a more accurate breakdown of cancer treatment performance.

 

“In the search for better cancer treatment, we believe that we have to work together with out clients to extract the maximum information from their clinical trials,” said Nadina Grosios, Director of Consultancy at SMS-oncology. “SAS enables us to deliver a more insightful, value-driven service, helping clients understand the efficacy of their treatments and where they can improve. Analytics is aiding our mission to contribute to finding better therapies that will benefit patients and their families.”

 

Charles Senabulya, Vice President & Country Manager for SAS UK & Ireland, commented: “Our work with SMS-oncology shows how analytics can be a powerful force for good. Analytics helps us work faster and smarter, simplifying complex tasks and extracting valuable insight about cancer treatments that we might otherwise have missed or discovered too late. We’re delighted with what we’ve achieved so far in such an important field and are very excited to see where innovative analytics can take us.”

 

SMS-oncology is currently developing dynamic patient profiles for its clients. Using SAS analytics, the company will be able to show how patients respond to treatments at every stage, helping customers understand the patient journey and better evaluate the success of their treatments.