Ockham, which was bought by trial staffing specialist ASG in February, will offer etrials’ suite of “Trial Intelligence” eClinical solutions, with a particular focus on providing platforms for use in adaptive trials.

Ockham president Joshua Baker explained that: “The addition of etrials’ adaptive solutions…increases our ability to provide an even greater breadth of integrated solutions with a highly flexible, robust EDC system delivered directly from us.”

Baker also stressed that by gaining access to the technology Ockham’s customers will be able to develop and deploy it for trials in a more flexible and reactive way, which he said will aid clinical development.

Under the deal, financial terms of which have not been released, etrials will also provide data hosting, training, development and technical support, as well sales and marketing services.

Denis Connaghan, etrial’s CEO, said the agreement “transfer[s] etrials’ knowledge of EDC design and deployment best practices and support and meet their sponsors’ clinical trial development requirements more holistically.”

etrials faces Nasdaq delisting

The Ockham deal and the potential extra customers and revenue it will generate for etrials, will not have escaped the attention of any of the firms currently pursuing a takeover.

On May 11 Bio-Imaging Technologies, also known as BioClinica, upped its bid for North Carolina headquartered etrials to some $15m after reports that an unidentified third company was considering a move for the EDC specialist.

Speaking at the time Mark Weinstein, CEO of BioClinica said: "etrials is an excellent fit with our long-term corporate strategy. This addition instantly broadens our eClinical product offering while leveraging our global operations.”

While further details of the rival bidder are yet to emerge, etrials will be hoping that any takeover bid happens sooner rather than later.

On May 22 the firm announced that it faces delisting from the Nasdaq Stock Market because it no longer complies with a rule requiring minimum stockholders’ equity of $10m

etrials, which reported stock holder equity of $9.6m for the three months ended March 31, said it is “currently preparing its plan for compliance with Nasdaq Global Market listing requirements and expects to submit the plan to Nasdaq by the June 2”.