AARDEX (Advanced Analytical Research on Drug Exposure) LTD (www.aardex.ch) develops products that measure, analyze, and facilitate patient compliance with prescribed drug regimens in clinical trials and medical practices. Hexalog SA (www.hexalog.com) is a software company with responsibility for all software development for AARDEX. Currently AARDEX is developing and selling electronic monitoring systems for patients taking medicine in the form of tablets. Electronics embedded within the tablets container detect when the container is opened and register date and time. The data is transmitted through an inductive interface to a local PC or via the Internet to Hexalog servers in Sion, Switzerland.

Medical research, software support and sales teams collaborating on the same project needed to improve their communciations, especially for project member task assignments and availability. A characteristic of this project is that the researchers, software developers and other participants are geographically scattered. While Hexalog SA is located in Sion, the French part of Switzerland, AARDEX Ltd. is in Zoug, a small town in the German part of Switzerland. The statistician group is based in Visé, Belgium and the medical Director is in Maastricht, Netherlands. In addition there are sales offices in Union City, San Diego and Chicago. An important problem therefore was determining how best to enable the researchers and software developers to collaborate and move the project forward in spite of their inability to be in the same place at the same time.

Groove Networks for collaboration and improved communication, TeamDirection Project for planning the activities of the project participants as well as monitoring their availability. “This solution has worked out very well for us”, says Pierre-Alain Gaillard, Technical Director for Hexalog SA, "it was low-cost, very quick to install, and we are now all on the same page."