The importance of clinical trials to the world of medicine cannot be emphasized enough. They are necessary to ascertain the quality as well as the ability of drugs to be safe palliatives and curatives for a host of ailments and human illness conditions. Whether a drug is safe for human usage and treatment is determined by these trials, which are conducted over animals and then on humans too. Clinical trial management systems are specific modes of software systems of managing the huge amounts of data and culled information related to these clinical trials.
 
A CTMS (Clinical Trials Management System) takes into account the preparation, performance testing and reporting of clinical trials. There are various sub-parts and sub systems in the trials that need to be tracked and monitored so as to meet the deadlines, conduct tests, file for approvals, follows ups and a host of other important scientific, administrative and legal functions and even some of the sub-functions.

In the initial stages, the number of tests, steps and procedures may be simple and a company could use an in-house program. But later when the scope and complexity of the trial management program increases, it would need a sophisticated management that takes into account the various aspects of financial management, communication and time management for effective clinical trials. So, more stable and feature-rich software programs are used at the advanced stages to take care of a host of requirements like patient management, budgeting, compliance with the regulations laid by government and compatibility with some other data management systems.
 
CTMS can have specific modules that record and document patient registry, patient study calendars, clinical data records and adverse event records. The system is a happy amalgam of biotechnology and pharmacology with the liberal use of information technology. A number of IT companies have built highly complex integrated clinical trial management systems for seamless coordination of various aspects of clinical trials.