Client spotlight
CRUK Centre for Drug Development
Maintaining consistency across complex clinical documents
Company overview
The Cancer Research UK Centre for Drug Development (CDD) is a charity-funded drug development organization. It advances innovative therapies through early-phase clinical trials, often targeting rare or underserved cancers that lack commercial investment. Working with biotech and pharmaceutical partners, CDD helps treatments generate early clinical data and move closer to patients.
Medical writing plays a central role, preparing documentation throughout each trial lifecycle. This supports decision-making by clinical investigators and regulatory authorities and so clear communication of scientific information is essential.
The challenge
Clinical trial documents at CDD are complex and collaborative. Multiple contributors provide specialized input across large, evolving documents. While this strengthens scientific accuracy, it introduces variation in terminology, formatting, and presentation.
In high-stakes regulatory contexts, small editorial inconsistencies can distract reviewers or slow interpretation. Medical writers must ensure each document reads as a unified whole so reviewers can focus on scientific content rather than avoidable variation.
Before PerfectIt, achieving this level of consistency relied heavily on manual checks.
Draft assembly
↓
Multi-author review
↓
QC Review
↓
PerfectIt consistency check
↓
External submission
The solution
To support quality control without increasing workload, the team introduced PerfectIt as part of their editorial review process. Rather than changing workflows, PerfectIt was incorporated into internal checklists as a structured consistency check.
This approach lets collaborators focus on scientific contributions while editorial consistency is addressed later in the process. Repeatable checks help writers apply organizational style guidance consistently.
“
We work on complex, high-stakes clinical documents involving multiple contributors and evolving drafts. PerfectIt takes consistency to another level, giving us confidence that we can maintain quality even when review cycles change or timelines tighten.
Christine Barlow
Medical Writing Manager
Adapting under pressure without compromising quality standards
A key outcome has been greater flexibility during complex review scenarios. Frequently, additional review rounds introduce new contributors late in the process, creating inconsistencies across drafts, such as variations in capitalization of oncology terminology, statistical abbreviations, and formatting between sections.
Because PerfectIt enables rapid consistency checks, the team restored alignment quickly when a draft needed to be shared earlier than planned, allowing documents to be released confidently under unexpected pressure.
Outcomes: flexibility and efficiency without
compromising quality
Consistent quality standards across collaborative documents
Editorial conventions are applied systematically, helping ensure clarity despite multiple contributors and evolving drafts.
Efficiency gains
Less manual editorial work saves time at critical stages.
Greater flexibility within changing timelines
Rapid consistency checks allow confident release when timelines shift or drafts are requested early.
Reinforced organizational standards
Repeated use strengthens internal style conventions and helps writers apply them consistently.
More focused use of expertise
Reducing manual editorial correction lets writers concentrate on scientific clarity rather than repetitive formatting tasks.
Supporting future growth
As the CDD expands its portfolio and undertakes increasingly complex oncology trials, maintaining consistent documentation will remain essential. Even as AI tools evolve, independent quality control continues to play a critical role. Structured, repeatable consistency checks help maintain high editorial standards while allowing medical writers to focus on scientific expertise.
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