LifeTree eClinical signs Vigiun to ClinPartners Program

We are pleased to announce that LifeTree eClinical, FFF's clinical electronic data capture and services company, recently entered into a partnership with Vigiun Clinical and Epidemiological Research, a full service contract research organization (CRO) based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Vigiun will collaborate with LifeTree through its ClinPartners™ program to provide a suite of clinical services interfaced with LifeTree eClinical's applications.

The combined offering from Vigiun and LifeTree provides pharma and biotech sponsors many great features including: identification and selection of clinical sites; clinical protocol design; clinical trial management and monitoring; electronic data capture, analysis and reporting; data and project management; and regulatory affairs.

"Brazil is at the core of the pharmaceutical industry in Latin America," said Eduardo Forleo, MD, Vigiun's medical and managing director. "The environment is ripe for Vigiun's development through a partnership with LifeTree. With the ClinPartners program, there is no doubt we can achieve global success by utilizing the expertise of both Vigiun and LifeTree."

For more information about LifeTree's ClinPartners program, please visit www.lifetreeclinical.com.

From a systematic literature review yielding 37 randomized controlled trials of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) used to treat 14 neurologic disorders, Canadian investigators conclude that:

IVIG therapy is effective for treatment of the following:

	Relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis  Idiopathic chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP)
IVIG also has potential clinical benefit for treatment of:
	Multifocal motor neuropathy  Dermatomyositis  Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome	Myasthenia gravis  Stiff-person syndrome

Investigators found insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion about the efficacy of IVIG for paraprotein-associated polyneuropathy, and no evidence of benefit for its use in secondary progressive multiple sclerosis or inclusion body myositis.

This exhaustive analysis of the available literature was completed by medical and epidemiology faculty at the University of Ottawa and University of Toronto.

The full citation is: Fergusson E, Hutton B, Sharma M et al. Use of intravenous immunoglobulin for treatment of neurologic conditions: a systematic review. Transfusion 2005 Oct; 45:1640-57.

Click here to access this study.