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Cytel Acquires Laiya Consulting, Further Expanding Bayesian Methods and Software Capabilities

Cytel Acquires Laiya Consulting, Further Expanding Bayesian Methods and Software Capabilities

Latest step in broadening industry access to the most innovative clinical trial design methods

by Cytel
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WALTHAM, MA, September 2, 2020 — Cytel Inc. has announced the acquisition of Laiya Consulting, a drug development solutions company specializing in Bayesian adaptive trial designs and implementation. The acquisition further builds Cytel’s dedicated team of Bayesian experts to include several new and highly esteemed biostatisticians led by renowned Bayesian design specialist Dr. Yuan Ji, who also jointly holds an appointment as professor of biostatistics at the University of Chicago. The deal follows the recent release of Cytel’s East Alloy platform for easy access to verified Bayesian tools, and marks the latest step in Cytel’s commitment to broadening industry access to the most innovative clinical trial design methods.

Faced with an increasingly competitive drug development landscape and the catastrophic financial consequences of product failure, drug developers are seeking better ways to boost success rates, accelerate timelines and reduce costs. Deploying Bayesian and other innovative methods provides an attractive option to efficiently progress clinical trials, offering the ability to leverage prior clinical information and accommodate adaptive approaches. However, the computational power, time and expertise needed to implement such methods has, until now, been a significant barrier to their widespread adoption.

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Yannis Jemiai, chief scientific officer at Cytel
cytel

"As we look to make the benefits of sophisticated Bayesian methods ever more accessible to drug developers, we’re taking strategic leaps to both bolster our core offerings and streamline their delivery to the market," said Yannis Jemiai, chief scientific officer at Cytel. "The release of East Alloy was a tremendous milestone here—effectively removing the daunting computational barriers to more widespread, easy Bayesian method implementation. Partnering with Laiya allows us to smoothly feed into our broad Bayesian software capabilities with ever greater levels of statistical innovation and expertise. We look forward to welcoming Dr. Yuan Ji and his colleagues to the team."

Founded in 2010, Laiya Consulting has supported drug developers to drive success rates and maximize portfolio returns through the design and implementation of Bayesian adaptive trials, robust clinical strategies, and integrated software platforms. Laiya pioneered the delivery of trial design software using SaaS, which aligns with Cytel’s goal of making all its design software available as a cloud-based service. Laiya’s co-founder Dr Yuan Ji is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and a global authority on Bayesian statistics, having invented multiple Bayesian trial designs and authored more than 150 papers and book chapters on the topic of Bayesian modelling and applications.

Dr. Yuan Ji, co-founder of Laiya Consulting 
CYTEL

"Bayesian approaches, when applied correctly, open an abundance of opportunity in clinical development, evidenced by our own and Cytel’s extensive work in this field," said Ji, co-founder of Laiya Consulting. "Merging with Cytel means unifying two rich sources of statistical proficiency to continue setting new standards for Bayesian design, which will ultimately help us to further enable drug developers to profitably solve the most intricate clinical challenges."

Cytel will host a series of free webinars on the key benefits and finer details of Bayesian design application, which will take place on Thursdays beginning in October 2020, and which will continue through March 2021. To find out more about Cytel’s advanced Bayesian capabilities, please visit https://www.cytel.com/software/east-alloy

As a pioneer in evidence generation, with deep expertise in advanced analytical solutions, Cytel is uniquely equipped to unlock the value from increasingly complex data. Life sciences companies count on Cytel to deliver exceptional insight, minimize trial risk, accelerate the development of promising new medicines that improve human life and unlock the value of these treatments. Cytel provides data-focused clinical research services and software solutions for the design and analysis of clinical trials, including industry standard East®, StatXact®, and LogXact®. With operations across North America, Europe, and India, Cytel employs 900 professionals, with strong talent in biostatistics, programming, data science, Bayesian designs, real-world analytics and data management. For more information about Cytel, visit https://www.cytel.com.