This month’s news on partnerships, appointments, expansions, and investment includes Javara, ACG, Phastar, Elligo Health Research, and other notable companies.
This month’s news on partnerships, appointments, expansions, and investment includes Javara, ACG, Phastar, Elligo Health Research, and other notable companies.
Integrated research organization (IRO) Javara has forged a strategic partnership with Mankato Clinic, a large physician-owned group practice based in Minnesota. Javara will embed clinical research professionals (led by clinical trial navigators) in Mankato Clinic care centers to help scale trial operations while improving patient experience.
"The launch of this new partnership with Mankato Clinic presents an exciting opportunity to enable more physicians and patients alike to participate in clinical research, further advancing our mission to ensure increased access to clinical trials for all," said Amanda Wright, Javara cofounder and chief development officer. "Together, we will provide more patients with access to cutting-edge care options and advance population health objectives through research in a region historically underrepresented among clinical trials."
Study software provider CluePoints has received the Citeline Award for Excellence in Innovation in Response to COVID-19 - Clinical Trial Activities. The award recognizes innovative work in developing new treatments, technologies, processes, services, or solutions to address the pandemic.
Patrick Hughes, CluePoints co-founder and chief commercial officer, said, “It is an absolute honor to receive this award in recognition of our pioneering work, which emphasizes the value of employing an agile, Risk-Based Quality Management (RBQM) approach. Thanks to the implementation of CluePoints’ solutions, the Pfizer/BioNTech product became the first COVID-19 vaccine to receive regulatory approval just 266 days after the pandemic declaration – and hundreds of millions of doses have since been administered around the globe.”
Pharma manufacturing solutions company ACG has named Udit Singh CEO of its Inspection Division. His responsibilities include ensuring all doses of medication that the division’s pharmaceutical and nutraceutical partners provide is manufactured and delivered as intended.
Singh said, “I am pleased to join ACG and will work to ensure that our advanced serialization, aggregation and anti-counterfeiting solutions track and protect medicines all the way through the supply chain, and into the hands of those who need them. We are investing substantially to ensure our track and trace platform performs seamlessly and complies with regulatory requirements all over the world. I look forward to playing an integral role, and contributing towards the continued development, working with a world-class team.”
Patient engagement solutions company Elligo Health Research has announced its partnership with Peoples Rx, a Texas-based pharmacy chain. The collaboration is geared toward increasing awareness of clinical research and making trials more accessible to potential patients.
“We’re in a unique position at Peoples Rx to help inform more people about how they can participate in clinical research opportunities,” said Stephen Erickson, Peoples Rx president. “Working with Elligo to offer research as healthcare to our customers helps support our mission to empower people to make educated health decisions.”
Contract research organization (CRO) Phastar has hired Ping-Chung Chang to serve as head of China development and global delivery. Headquartered in Phastar’s Beijing office, he will be responsible for bolstering the company’s development in the region.
“We are delighted to have someone with Ping’s expertise join our team to expand our presence in the Asia Pacific region,” said Andrew MacGarvey, CEO. “Ping’s wealth of experience in this market will help continue to drive our success in our latest phase of growth, enhance our overall global delivery excellence, and realize our full business potential.”
Scientific solutions provider Thermo Fisher has announced a partnership with Matrix Clinical Trials. The collaboration is poised to use decentralized clinical trials to increase patient awareness off, and access to, studies.
Tim Rich, vice president of digital and decentralized solutions in clinical research with Thermo Fisher, said, “Mobile sites are a key component of our sought-after portfolio of hybrid and decentralized clinical trial capabilities. With Matrix’s experienced teams of clinicians and ready-to-deploy mobile sites, we are able to reach a broader range of participants, including in previously under-represented and under-served communities, without requiring them to travel to traditional investigator sites far from their homes.”
Patient-centric technology company Curebase has announced securing $40m USD in Series B funding, with investors including Gilead Sciences. The investment funds reportedly will be used to further development of its end-to-end clinical trial execution model, virtual and hybrid site capabilities, and eClinical software platform.
“We are pleased that investors are recognizing that Curebase is more than a software platform,” said company founder and CEO Tom Lemberg. “We are an end-to-end clinical trial company with global capabilities and an extensive site network of virtual and hybrid site staff that provides everything needed to successfully execute a better clinical trial.”
Health data specialists Komodo Health and Datavant have announced an expansion of their existing partnership. The collaborators reportedly will work to enable clients to securely connect proprietary and third-party clinical trial data, specialty pharmacy data, and more to Komodo’s technology and insights platform in order to drive more value from their data.
“As one of Datavant’s first partners, we are thrilled to be on a journey with them to democratize access to clinical insights at scale,” said Arif Nathoo, co-founder and CEO of Komodo Health. “Using Datavant’s technology, Komodo’s platform has been supporting clinical development teams to unlock the value of real-world evidence to increase health equity in site selection, improve speed of recruitment and support research to reduce the burden of disease.”
Contract pharmaceutical packaging company Tjoapack announced it has completed the expansion of its Etten,Leur, Netherlands, facility. The expansion (following an investment of more than €10m, or more than $10.5m USD) doubles the plant’s capacity with the addition of 10 production rooms and three production lines (one for vials, two for oral solids).
Boy Tjoa, managing director for the company’s Netherlands operations, said, “Packaging is of course fundamental to the safe, effective delivery of virtually every pharmaceutical product. I am proud that through our expansion we can help bring even more products to market safely.”
Digital health platform company Remedy Health Media has formed a multi-year commercial partnership with Belong.Life, the creator of a large community of cancer and multiple sclerosis patients and caregivers, and of the BOS (Belong Operating Systems) patient community platform. The partners will work to provide patient communities with educational campaigns, news, medical conference coverage, and in-depth features to help manage their conditions.
“We are excited to collaborate with the team at Remedy, a company that shares our goal to bring relevant, targeted and personalized education to millions of patients and caregivers,” said Eliran Malki, co-founder and CEO of Belong.Life. “Our platforms are an ideal vehicle for engaging, educating and empowering patients and professionals, and this partnership, as well as others, will enhance the comprehensive Belong ecosystem of support and education we have built to help people around the world.”
