MedAvante Opens Moscow Office and Successfully Completes First Centralized Ratings Assessment

HAMILTON, N.J., May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- MedAvante, Inc., the leader in centralized evaluation of central nervous system (CNS) disorders, announced today the successful completion of the first study assessment using Centralized Ratings in their Moscow assessment center. MedAvante's Moscow headquarters is the first fully operational center for conducting Centralized Ratings located outside of the United States.

Remote centralized ratings are real-time assessments, either by telephone or videoconference, of subjects in global drug trials. Centralizing the assessors, the raters, results in a level of standardization and calibration that is not achievable with a decentralized group of study raters participating from unconnected investigative sites.

"MedAvante's methodology offers the possibility that an outcome measure can be administered in exactly the same way anywhere in the world ensuring improvements in data quality throughout a research study," said Valery Krasnov MD, PhD, Director, Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry, President of the Russian Federation of Psychiatry and MedAvante Advisory Board co-chair. "As a physician and a scientist, I am dedicated to improving the way in which psychiatric trials are conducted and see Centralized Ratings as a way of doing so."

Centralized Ratings addresses trends in clinical trials such as decreasing drug effect and increasing placebo response, which have led to a high rate of expensive, yet uninformative, drug trials. "

MedAvante had always planned to expand the company's global presence. "While we had expanded our Continuous Quality Control (CQC) services to 25 countries throughout the world, we were waiting for the right opportunity to expand the more robust Centralized Ratings Platform outside of the United States. Sponsors saw the value in employing our methodology in Russia," said Paul Gilbert, CEO of MedAvante. "MedAvante provides sponsors with the assurance that regardless of where a trial is located, the same rigorous standards apply."

About MedAvante

MedAvante is the premier global provider of centralized expert psychiatric rating and monitoring services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. Centralizing raters makes it possible to continuously train and calibrate clinicians, which improves consistency and accuracy of the assessment of symptoms. The resulting level of standardization is not achievable with a larger group of decentralized raters participating from unconnected study sites. In addition, MedAvante raters are remote from the sites enrolling and treating the patients and thus can be more objective assessors of their symptoms. The company offers a range of services, including assessment of patients via high-quality real-time videoconferencing and quality control for trials via review of videotaped ratings.  MedAvante's research has shown that these improvements reduce trial failure rates, one of the most serious challenges facing the development of new psychiatric and neurologic treatments. MedAvante operates facilities in Hamilton, NJ; Madison, WI; and Moscow, Russia.

SOURCE MedAvante, Inc.