Oracle buys clinical trial software maker

Oracle on Thursday said it has acquired SiteWorks Solutions, a Memphis, Tenn.-based maker of software for clinical trial management. The database company said it will integrate SiteWorks' products, SiteMinder and TrialMinder, into its products for clinical trials. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Oracle's clinical products are designed to help drug companies handle a number of parallel clinical studies, eliminate redundancy in remote data capture, track adverse events from different sources, summarize medical terminology and respond to regulatory queries. "Pharmaceutical companies need to reduce the $800 million cost of producing a new drug, and research institutions need to operate more efficiently in order to be attractive to those pharmaceutical companies," Keith Howells, VP of Oracle's pharmaceutical applications effort, said in a statement.