PhOSCo News Archive
PhOSCo - the Pharma Open Source Community
PhOSCo News Archive
We have shipped V1.3 beta and it will be available to licenced users from the end of this week.
This release includes the autovalidator and other significant new function, including PhOSCo core support for databases such as Oracle (V1.3 ships with a sample Oracle implementation), over and above the 1.3 alpha release.
We are characterising it as a beta release because, although we believe it is industrial strength, it is an essential precursor to use that all users validate the product in their environment before use. The existing PGUIRobot and the new autovalidation function of the V1.3 release will make this process essentially an automatic "press the button" function after initial setup for a user organisation.
The new draft Trial Builder User Guide, which includes all instructions for the new functionality, can also be accessed from the Information and Download pages on this site.
A version of PhOSCo with limited autovalidation functionality wil be available on this and the Phosco.org sites sometime in mid August. Full autovalidation will be available in the same way as current restricted materials.
You will have noticed that we leave hype to other EDC vendors; after all, they only have money and marketing; we deliver function.
We're sorry, but we have to start to blow our trumpet.
We have just finished coding what is probably the most significant advance in EDC functionality since we introduced the first end-user EDC build tool, seven years ago.
We thought it was going to be good, but even we're impressed.
Some of you will have seen our first validation function suggestions on this page recently. We've taken those away, because we found a far better way of doing it.
PhOSCo Version 1.3 will have AutoValidation. For some of what it can do, see the AutoValidation teaser page - we'll add to this over time.
PhOSCo 1.3 will be available to new commercial licencees and all PhOSCo subscribers within the next month. We will be making a wider release after a decent interval of some months. The message is, if you want the next big advance in EDC, take out a licence or subscription now.
We've received the first third party code submission that can be made freely available. See the new Contributions page for details.
Following many recent reports on the net and elsewhere about the remarkable success of the switch of Novartis to virtually 100% EDC, we have been asked to clarify the situation regarding PhOSCo and Novartis. Novartis have opened over 130 trials with EDC in the past few months, and are reporting LPV to database close times down to between 1 and 5 days (down from 12 weeks with paper), and a first-year overall saving in excess of $50 million. Sylva Collins and her team did a great job, and we're proud to have worked with them and been a part of it.
It is now pretty well general knowledge that Novartis are using PhOSCo for their EDC, and the confusion arises because Novartis is reported as saying they "bought" the code.
That's a simplification. Novartis bought an enterprise licence, and as is their (and everyone's) right under the PhOSCo General Licence, have made proprietary exensions and customisations to the PhOSCo base to suit their own working practices and reporting requirements. We (Guillemot Design) coded several of these extensions for them; we do proprietary work as well as work on the PhOSCo base.
So what PhOSCo offers is the same base system as Novartis are using, the same innovative architecture, comprehensive rich function, and scalable capability, but PhOSCo licencees won't get precisely the Novartis system. The point about a customisable, Open Source solution is that you can start with a good, working base, and change it later if you want to. Other PhOSCo users are using it straight out of the box. With Open Source, you choose. And your choices are open-ended, for ever, zero risk.
And Novartis have proved that scalability. If you want to move from doing nothing but a few pilots with your EDC, why not consider the only EDC solution that is proven scalable, full function, and affordable; PhOSCo.
Of course, at the other end of the scale, our friends at the KKS in Düsseldorf have shown that small University departments without extensive support staffs can run PhoSCo equally well, and are acting as pioneering support for the German academic community - see www.phosco.de.
In providing some new functionality, it will be necessary to make some changes to the database so far defined for PhOSCo. These changes do not affect existing code or tables currently used by existing code. So that independent developers can stay in synch with the PhOSCo developers, we are making available an early copy of the modified database definitions, as a downloadable zip file (click here).
We will always attempt to keep database modifications to a minimum. Where changes are necessary, if at all possible they will be restricted to previously unused tables, or provided as additions.
We've just updated our licence terms - more explanations, some slight liberalisation and price reductions. As of 18/03/2003, we will only be accepting applications based on Version 4.0, the new one, which you can download as a PDF file (click here).
We've released some modules of 1.3 alpha to PhOSCo subscribers. The new functionality in these is to provide Widget level (question level) metadata storage and re-usability for eCRFs, with full change control. They've promised to get back to us with comments on how we can improve the presentation of this functionality. At the moment we don't have a date for the release of 1.3 - probably early second quarter.
It has long been an aim of ours to get a body of independent people offering a range of information, services, and discussion forums based on PhOSCo. ClinECom has now opened www.phosco.org as a discussion forum as well as a shop window for many of the ways in which PhOSCo may be extended. They also have a "download and go" evaluation package for PhOSco EDC which in many ways is easier for non-technical people to get going with PhOSCo immediately than the "official" PhOSCo release.
For some time the University of Dusseldorf Centre of Competence for Clinical Studies (KKS) has been supporting PhOSCo informally, and now has officially opened a Competence and Reference Centre for PhOSCo.
Their website www.phosco.de offers more information and contact points for those interested.
Sorry about the delay, people; we were taken up pretty well 100% the last year doing a significant re-write of PhOSCo for a major Pharma company. They were very complimentary, but wanted a lot of changes to meet their own working practices. Much of that has improved the base product. A lot was also proprietary (which is why we've been quiet) and of course is not in the base product.
No matter. We're back, and we're changing the way we distribute PhOSCo. As of now, you can download the vast majority of PhOSCo. The production version. Source and executable.
The licence remains more or less the same, but pricing has changed. Non-profit and personal use is essentially free of any charge, but you do have to honour the licence.
Commercial use remains, as ever, the lowest cost, lowest risk, of any full function EDC product.
The version currently available is the 1.2 beta. Don't worry too much about the beta - we think the quality is pretty good. We're going to keep that "beta" word there to emphasize that commercial users do have to validate this product for use in their own environment.
What's new? A whole slew of things, making CRFs a lot more configurable. You really need to read the new Trial Builder User Guide. One major enhancement is that PhOSCo is now even more multilingual - you can now define a single CRF page definition, using the same end-user drag and drop build tool, and have the text on it defined in as many languages as you need, and switch between them at run time.
Where do I get it? Along with everything else, on the download page.
We're working full steam on the Trial Progress Management module. If you're interested, there's still time to comment or make additions to the requirements specifications of that. Grab the TR outline requirement specification, add your comments, and send it back to design@phosco.com
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