San Francisco, Feb 21 (IANS): Software giant IBM on Friday said it will provide its Clinical Development (ICD) system free of charge to institutions in China that are researching novel coronavirus (COVID-19) drugs and conducting related clinical trials.

During this critical period, IBM intends to work together with medical institutions and practitioners by leveraging the ICD system to help support the accelerated development of key drugs to combat the virus.

ICD is a unified SaaS-based data capture solution, designed to provide end-to-end visibility as well as patient, site, and clinical trial management capabilities.

According to the company, ICD is designed to reduce the time and cost of clinical trials by centralising and organising clinical trial details, providing 24/7 access to clinical trial data via a single URL from any web-enabled device, and providing a flexible and scalable data management platform to help design and manage clinical trials by incorporating optional clinical trial-specific features and services.

IBM intends to provide ICD system free of charge to eligible applicable novel coronavirus-related clinical trials in China.

The company will provide commercially-reasonable technology to support database construction and basic training for the use of ICD.

IBM is taking steps to help hospitals, sponsors in China that are researching novel coronavirus drugs and conducting related clinical trials.