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Our Mission
Alzheimer's disease is a very difficult disease to treat, and the field is crowded with companies hoping to see success with their treatments.
Pentara Corporation specializes in Alzheimer's disease clinical study design and efficacy analysis with at least 95% of Pentara's business devoted to the planning and implementation of efficacy analyses in Alzheimer's disease.
The reason for this highly specialized approach is that Pentara is a small company, and the field of Alzheimer's disease is progressing rapidly in terms of measurement of disease, population selection and efficacy analysis.
In order to be the very best at what we do, we have restricted ourselves to a field in which we can be on the cutting edge and offer our customers the reassurance that at the end of their clinical trial
-- whether it fails or succeeds --
they don't have to question whether they have measured the right outcomes and analyzed them in the best way.
We want them to be able to present results to outside audiences in a compelling way in order to move forward with confidence that decisions have been based on solid scientific evidence.
Our Services
Pentara has two different business arrangements that suit the needs of their clients in the Alzheimer's disease field. The first is an arrangement where the primary service performed by Pentara is improving the planning of the clinical trial by optimizing the population selection, the efficacy outcome measurement and calculation, and the statistical analysis of the efficacy outcome. This arrangement is appropriate when a company has experience in Alzheimer's disease, but wants to venture into a new population, consider a new outcome, or improve the analysis methods in order to be more confident that the study design being planned is customized to the new project being considered. In most of these cases, the company is performing their own statistical analyses, programming their own tables, figures and listings, and has a staff that are either already experienced with Alzheimer's disease, or ready to become experienced as part of a long term commitment to this field. Often, these types of arrangements lead to publications or presentations of the results in order to share the insights learned with the field.
The second type of arrangement is one where the primary service performed by Pentara is the production of efficacy tables, and figures. This arrangement is more appropriate when a company is new to Alzheimer's disease and is performing a study in a population that is already well-studied with an outcome that is standard. Pentara has standard tables and figures that reflect the best approaches currently used in the Alzheimer's disease field. As the field progresses, these standard tables and figures are updated to reflect current thinking. The analyses in this case are likely to be traditional, with some updating, and Pentara would assist in writing the analyses into the protocol (along with calculation of the sample size) and the statistical analysis plan. In this case, the production of all of the tables, figures and listings can be performed by Pentara Corporation, but it is important that the efficacy analyses are performed by Pentara*. A combination of the two approaches may be desired, particularly in the case when the company is interested in optimizing the analysis or the outcomes for the specific study being planned, but when most of the aspects of the study design are standard.
*In the past, Pentara has offered the option of writing the protocol statistical section and the efficacy analysis section of the statistical analysis plan in cases when all analyses -- efficacy and non-efficacy -- are being performed by an outside group, but this has not proven to be in the best interest of our clients. In some cases, the outside companies performing the analyses have not performed them in the intended way, or have made decisions about the details of the analysis that were not consistent with the plan and the result was that the company was unsure whether the inconsistencies in the results were due to lack of a treatment effect or due to the decisions made during the analysis process.
Publications
Hendrix SB: Measuring clinical progression in MCI and pre-MCI populations: Time as the Gold Standard. Commisioned review article currently under review, Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy 2012
Hendrix SB: Requiring an amyloid-β1–42 biomarker may improve the efficiency of a study, and simulations may help in planning studies. Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy 2011, 3:X.
Shankle R, Atri A, Hendrix S: Improving measurement methodology to detect treatment effect in clinical trials [abstract]. The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging© Volume 15, Supplement 1, 2011, s3.
Vellas B, Aisen P, Sampaio C, Carrillo M, Scheltens P, Scherrer B, Frisoni B, Weiner M, Schneider L, Gauthier S, Gispen-Wied C, Hendrix S, Feldman H, Cedarbaum J, Petersen R, Siemers E, Andrieu S, Prvulovic D, Touchon J, Hampel H; Prevention Trials in Alzheimer’s Disease: AN EU-US task Force report. From the Toulouse Task Force 2010
Hendrix SB, Wilcock GK; What We Have Learned from the Myriad Trials. Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging. 2009 Apr: 13(4):362-364.
Wilcock GK, Black SE, Hendrix SB, Zavitz KH, Swabb EA, Laughlin MA; Tarenflurbil Phase II Study investigators (2008) Efficacy and safety of tarenflurbil in mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease: a randomised phase II trial. Lancet Neurol. 2008 Jun;7(6):483-93. Epub 2008 Apr 29.
Vellas B, Andrieu S, Sampaio C, Coley N, Wilcock G; European Task Force Group (incl. Hendrix S). Endpoints for trials in Alzheimer's disease: a European task force consensus. Lancet Neurol. 2008 May;7(5):436-50.
Galasko DR, Graff-Radford N, May S, Hendrix S, Cottrell BA, Sagi SA, Mather G, Laughlin M, Zavitz KH, Swabb E, Golde TE, Murphy MP, Koo EH (2007) Safety, Tolerability, Pharmacokinetics, and Abeta Levels After Short-term Administration of R-flurbiprofen in Healthy Elderly Individuals. Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord. 21 (4):292-299.
Job Opportunities
Pentara is always interested in connecting with SAS programmers and Statisticians that want to be in the Salt Lake Area.
If you have at least 3 years of clinical trial programming experience in SAS, and you are interested in part-time programming work (remote), please contact us.
Statisticians please contact Suzanne Hendrix (shendrix at pentaracorp dot com).
SAS Programmers please contact Kent Hendrix (khendrix at pentaracorp dot com). 801-699-4295
Summer Internships
Summer internships are coordinated through Kent Hendrix.
Please send resumes to khendrix@pentaracorp dot com.
Software Architect
ASP.NET Developer
Web Designer
Software Tester
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Software Architect
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Job Description |
The Software Architect will act as team leader / lead developer to oversee a group of developers to create a suite of web applications to help small to mid-sized companies, and universities collect, manage, standardize, and interpret clinical trial data. |
Qualifications and/or Preferred Skills |
- Team Leadership Skills
- Excellent Communication Skills
- Egalitarian life philosophy
- Must be familiar with Visual Stuido
- ASP.NET
- C#
- SQL, SQL Server Stored proc & functions
- HTML 5
- JavaScript
- AJAX
- jQuery
- css
- Software Testing
- Git
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ASP.NET Developer
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Job Description |
The ASP.NET developer will work in close conjunction with the web designer to create a sleek yet functional user interface for a clinical trial management system, and supporting modules, designed to scale to a variety of platforms from mobile devices to desktops. |
Qualifications and/or Preferred Skills |
- Must be familiar with Visual Stuido
- ASP.NET
- C#
- HTML 5
- JavaScript
- AJAX
- jQuery
- css
- Code documentation
- Git
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Web Designer
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Job Description |
The Web Designer will work to make the suite of web applications we are developing have a spectacular user interface. You’ll make sure that the flow of the web site is clear, and looks good on a wide variety of devices, desk tops, and browsers. You’ll make sure that the graphics and icons are clean, and speak to the functionality they represent. |
Qualifications and/or Preferred Skills |
- Should be familiar with Visual Stuido
- css
- Should be familiar with graphics programs
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Software Tester
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Job Description |
The Software Tester will try in every way conceivable to break our software. You’ll be asked to produce test cases that exercise every aspect of the web applications we are making. You’ll need to document these test cases such that they meet United States Food and Drug Administration (21 CFR Part 11) and European Medicines Agency standards for validation of software that deals with digital patient records and signatures. |
Qualifications and/or Preferred Skills |
- Should be familiar with Visual Stuido
- Should become familiar with 21 CFR Part 11
- Should be familiar with writing and executing formal test cases
- Should be familiar with some web testing software
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