PPD & Celtic's New Strategic Alliance

This week PPD announced that they will invest $100 million in Celtic Therapeutics Holdings. Fred Eshelman, Executive Chairman of PPD said the strategic alliance was “"Built upon the leadership and track records of Stephen Evans-Freke and Peter B. Corr, Celtic Therapeutics has a team of seasoned drug development professionals we believe is capable of building one of the most highly valued late-stage portfolios in the global biomedical industry."

It is partnerships like these that will shape the future of our industry. Peter Corr was the keynote speaker at the 2009 Partnerships in Clinical Trials event. He spoke about Virtual Pharma: Addressing Challenges and Opportunities in Biomedical R&D. PPD was a Platinum sponsor and also spoke at the event. Their topic was Driving Global Growth: Strategic Considerations for Conducting Clinical Trials in Non-Traditional Markets. Take a look at some of the topics discussed at last year's event.

As our industry evolves, game changing partnerships can be the key to future innovation and profitability. For years, Partnerships in Clinical Trials has been the one place the industry goes to find partners and improve those partnerships. Download the brochure to see who will be speaking at this years event scheduled for April 12-14, 2010 in Orlando, FL.

Free Webinar - Realizing Multidimensional Performance Metrics for Improved Clinical Trial Management

Date/Time: Tue, Feb 23, 2010 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST
Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/561607368
Mention priority code P1500W3TwitterBlog

Performance metrics need to be reviewed with respect to the end goals of the study they are being measured on. They should be looked at in context with those goals and with an understanding of their effect on other aspects of the study. Status reports should accurately report the Key Performance Metrics and provide insight into their implications if they remain unchanged. This would allow for strategy to be focused on what needs to be done to enhance performance. Status reports with metrics can be a vehicle to consistent communication between upper and lower level management.

What you will learn:
• How to use metrics to enable discussions with upper management
• How to focus results / goals
• Using metrics to guide strategy
• Understand that metrics should not be viewed in a silo

Presented by:
John C. Burnett, PMP
Founder / CEO
JaPa Associates, Inc.

John is a seasoned Clinical Research Professional with nearly 15 years experience working in Clinical Trials, including 8 years in senior level management roles. John has worked for major pharma and biotech companies such as Vivus, Pfizer, Amgen, Scios under Sr. CRA, Clinical Project Manager and Clinical Trial Manager positions.

Central Labs Spotlight: Scott Sawicki, MA, US Head, Clinical Contracting, a.i.

With Central Labs taking place next week, we have our concluding speaker for the Central Labs West Podcast series.

Our final podcast is with Scott Sawicki, MA, US Head, Clinical Contracting, a.i. During this podcast, he answers the following questions:

• After six years of involvement with Central Labs, why is it still important to Scott?
• His vision for the format of the Solutions to process bottlenecks panel discussion
• What Scott hopes to accomplish during his panel at Central Labs West
• Trends he is seeing in clinical contracting
• How Scott sees that are central labs, ECG and imaging labs pushing the industry forward?

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Download Scott Sawicki's podcast here.


Central Labs West will be taking place next week, February 3-5, 2010. We invite you to join our Central Labs LinkedIn group to network and communicate with others before and during the event!

Partnerships in Clinical Trials Sponsorship and Exhibition Opportunities Still Available

What are you waiting for?
Sponsorships and Exhibit spaces are almost sold out!
Looking for your next Partnership? Find it here with nearly 2,000 clinical professionals attending.

Utilize 3 days out of the office to your best advantage by discovering new ideas, strategies and tools found under ONE roof.

Reach Your Target Audience – As a sponsor or exhibitor you will have direct access to almost 2000 Clinical Development and Outsourcing Professionals attending this event who you will be able to develop new partnerships with and strengthen existing partnerships.

Build Your Database – Meet new prospects and partners during our creatively crafted networking activities, as well as in our exhibit area. Exchange business cards and update your global database with some of the most influential industry executives.

Demonstrate Knowledge and Expertise – Showcase your company’s products and services to an audience that can appreciate your position in the market place and the value of a potential partnership.

Be Enlightened – Gain a competitive advantage through the collective insights of over 150 industry thought leaders at the top of the clinical development profession including over 75 brand new speakers.

About the 19th Annual Partnerships in Clinical Trials Event

With over 55 billion spent on clinical development last year, Partnerships in Clinical Trials is the # 1 meeting place where stakeholders come together to network and exchange solutions around the value propositions in drug development partnering. More than ever before the economic climate has made your strategic partnerships top priority.

You Target Audience: Participants by Industry:
46% Pharmaceutical/Biotechnology
44% CROs
5% E-Technology
5% Other

Participants by title:
35% Outsourcing/Contracts/Budgets
29% Business Development/Strategic Alliances
20% R&D/Clinical Development/Operations
8% Drug Safety/Pharmacovigilance
6% Project Management/Quality
2% Other

What are your marketing goals this year?
- Build your database
- Increase sales
- Announce new products or partnerships
- Enhance customer retention and loyalty
- Build Brand Awareness
- Expand your company's reach

Distinguish Your Company from the Competition

Sponsorship Opportunities: With competition for the market's attention stronger than ever, your company needs to extend its reach to build relationships and connect with prospects. Partnerships sponsorships offer a variety of ways to raise your company's profile in this market, both pre-event and on-site. There are numerous sponsorship opportunities and packages available, and we offer multiple levels to accommodate companies of all sizes.

Exhibition Opportunities: Showcase your company with an exhibit booth in the Partnerships exhibition hall. The exhibition area is the networking heart of the event where receptions are held, breaks take place, and refreshments are served.

For Sponsorship Opportunities Contact:
Sarah Scarry
+1 646 895 7472
sscarry@iirusa.com

For Exhibition Opportunities Contact:
Michael Vidoni
+1 646 895 7479
mvidoni@iirusa.com

Fujitsu Launches SaaS Solution for Clinical Drug Trials

Webnewswire.com reports that to optimize clinical trial operations during new drug development, Fujitsu is offering an on-demand SaaS-based data management system, which previously was only available as a software package.

The new service, called tsClinical, is now available in Japan.

Learn more: Fujitsu Launches SaaS Solution for Clinical Drug Trials

Who was your childhood hero?

Central Labs West will be taking place February 3-5, 2010, and before then, we're going to highlight some of the speakers who will be joining us. We invite you to join our Central Labs LinkedIn group to network and communicate with others before and during the event!

Central Labs Spotlight: Solomon Babani, Celtic Pharma Development Services

With Central Labs coming up in February, we've started an interview series with some of the speakers we're looking forward to in February.

Our fourth podcast is with Solomon Babani, Celtic Pharma Development Services. During this podcast, he answers the following questions:

-Advice for smaller pharmaceutical companies to streamline their operational processes?
-The differences between Partnerships in Clinical Trials and Central Labs West
-How the economic downturn is affecting outsourcing
-Some advice for smaller pharmaceutical companies to streamline their operational processes

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Download Solomon Babani's podcast here.
Download a transcript of Solomon Babani's podcast here.

Central Labs West will be taking place February 3-5, 2010, and before then, we're going to highlight some of the speakers who will be joining us. We invite you to join our Central Labs LinkedIn group to network and communicate with others before and during the event!

Advanced Biomarker Strategies in Oncology Drug Development Event– Attend for Free!

The organizers of the Annual Partnerships in Clinical Trials and Central Labs events are pleased to introduce you to Advanced Biomarker Strategies in Oncology Drug Development. This unique clinical immersion program is the first of our three part Target Clinical Trials Series, delivering therapeutic-specific strategies to facilitate the execution of successful clinical trials. The 2010 oncology series begins February 4-5, 2010 at Grand Hyatt San Francisco with a two-day program focusing exclusively on the latest development in oncology biomarkers.

This invitation only think tank is FREE to biopharma VP and Director level clinical research executives and brings together 75-100 leaders in clinical R&D, oncology, drug development, and translational research in an exciting and engaging environment to deliver and develop solutions, industry standards and practical applications for biomarker development and validation.

For more information, visit the website here:
http://bit.ly/8fqv8m

Connect with your Oncology Clinical Trial peers when you join the Target Clinical Series LinkedIn group:
http://bit.ly/8gZtsd

Web Seminar: Realizing Multidimensional Performance Metrics for Improved Clinical Trial Management

Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

About the web seminar:
Performance metrics need to be reviewed with respect to the end goals of the study they are being measured on. They should be looked at in context with those goals and with an understanding of their effect on other aspects of the study. Status reports should accurately report the Key Performance Metrics and provide insight into their implications if they remain unchanged. This would allow for strategy to be focused on what needs to be done to enhance performance. Status reports with metrics can be a vehicle to consistent communication between upper and lower level management.

What you will learn:
• How to use metrics to enable discussions with upper management
• How to focus results / goals
• Using metrics to guide strategy
• Understand that metrics should not be viewed in a silo

Presented by:
John C. Burnett, PMP
Founder / CEO
JaPa Associates, Inc.

Find out more about the web seminar and register here:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/561607368

Presented by:

Look back at Partnerships 2009: Partnerships with CROs: Leading Change through Innovation

Over the next few months leading up to 19th Annual Partnerships in Clinical Trials in Orlando, Florida, we will be looking back at some of the presentations from the 2009 event. Today, we've got the panel discussion featuring Christopher C. Gallen, MD, PhD, President & Chief Executive Officer, Neuromed, Jack H. Dean, PhD, ScD (Hon.), DABT, Fellow ATS, President, U.S. Science and Medical Affairs (R&D), Sanofi--Aventis (Ret.), and Elliott Levy, MD, Vice President, Clinical Development, Bristol-Myers Squibb titled "Leading Through Change: Innovation and the Future of the Biopharmaceutical Industry". This presentation was featured last year in our live coverage. You can find the write up here.

You can download the PowerPoint PDF here:
http://bit.ly/7IiLhZ

To find out what presentations and topics will be at this year's Partnerships in Clinical Trials, visit the webpage here.

Number of clinical trials falling in UK

According to an article at Financial Times, the number of clinical trials being conducted in the UK has dramatically decreased in the past few years. Global clinical trials taking place in the UK was at 6% in 2002, but has since fallen to 2% in 2007. They also saw a dramatic decrease in the number of late stage trails being conducted in the country, from 728 in 2008 to 470 in 2009. The article cites bureaucracy, low recruitment rates and slow up take rate of new drugs in the country.

Have you recently pulled out of the UK when doing clinical trials? Are your reasons the same as above? If not, what are other reasons you're no longer conducting clinical trials in the US?

These 10 Reasons Partnerships is the One Event you Must Attend This Year

We recognize how hard it can be to obtain approval to attend industry conferences right now. Yet we also know how important attending Partnerships in Clinical Trials is to the future of your organization. Partnerships is not just any conference, it is the industry event of the year and it is the one place “Where business gets done.” To make it easier for you this year, we’ve pulled together all the information you’ll need to make the case for your company’s investment.

1. It’s the most respected industry event that brings together the Who’s Who in senior clinical development and outsourcing leadership in an interactive and engaging environment to share strategies and inspire innovation – Get a glimpse into what the future of Pharma R&D will look like and determine how well your company is prepared

2. Over 1800 senior pharma, biotech and CROs executives from over 40 countries attend each year with whom you’ll be able to connect and exchange ideas around sourcing to low cost regions, regulatory, quality and drug safety, M&A and co-development deals and much more

3. The event offers rich content researched with industry leaders and the Partnerships Advisory Board, recognized for providing an unparalleled level of educational sessions and networking opportunities, and has an extensive history of delivering the highest-quality content and out-of-the-box Keynote Speakers not seen at any other event of its kind.

4. Partnerships’ extensive program agenda features over 150 speakers, 50 educational sessions, 8 in-depth workshops, and 8 custom tracks to spark new ideas for transforming our industry with more robust future business models such as risk/reward and virtual drug development.

5. New and innovative interactive learning and networking formats including roundtable sessions, workshops, speed networking, hall tours and a charity run to benefit cancer research.

6. With over 200 of the top clinical trial providers exhibiting at the event, you can spend time reviewing all of the products and services your company is planning on using (such as patient recruitment, central labs, e-technology) on the spot without having to schedule multiple office visits with suppliers.

7. Face-to-face time with your existing partners is critical to the success of our ongoing relationships which you can accomplish through formal pre-set meetings to optimize your time out of the office plus timely discuss ions on maximizing the true value of a strategic partnership with a CRO and understanding the drivers for sourcing for small, medium and large size sponsors

8. With the majority of your competitors attending this event, it is essential that your company is represented and is there to pick up on new industry information, trends and competitive intelligence on strategies in early clinical development, meeting post-marketing research obligations, approaches to RFPs and oversight, process efficiencies and cost containment, site management and more

9. The timely inclusion of topics related to our changing healthcare environment is paramount as we partner to manage uncertainties within our industry with one of the country’s foremost authorities, former Senator Tom Daschle, headlining these discussions

10. High-level discussions and new perspectives around value creation, strategic sourcing and partnerships, investigator sites, alliance

management, cost and contract management, global regulatory requirements and pharmacovigilance, and leading virtual teams among many other hot topics confirms that this conference is the one to attend in 2010

We hope to see you there!

Central Labs Spotlight: Peter Colbourne, ConcentRx Consulting

With Central Labs coming up in February, we've started an interview series with some of the speakers we're looking forward to in February.

Our third podcast is with Central Labs Conference Chair Peter Colbourne. During this podcast, he answers the following questions:
-A look at Logistics standardization
-A preview of the Logistics Taskforce
-Some Logistics advice

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Download Peter Colbourne's podcast here.
Download a transcript of Peter Colbourne's podcast here.

Central Labs West will be taking place February 3-5, 2010, and before then, we're going to highlight some of the speakers who will be joining us. We invite you to join our Central Labs LinkedIn group to network and communicate with others before and during the event!