Each year, hundreds of clinical trial innovators gather to exchange ideas and network with like-minded peers at the Disruptive Innovations to Advance Clinical Trials conference. This year the conference, which is also known as dPharm, is being held September 20-21st at the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, MA.
We caught up with five leading innovators who regularly attend dPharm and asked two questions:
- What have you found most valuable about attending dPharm in prior years?
- What are you most looking forward to this year?
Here are their replies…
Elise Felicione – Sr. Director, R&D Operations Innovation @ J&J
The most valuable thing about attending dPharm is the connections I’ve made with innovation leaders and entrepreneurs across the industry. I also learn a lot from presentations and sessions that I can take back into my organization for implementation.
This is a particularly exciting time in clinical trial innovation. It’s been an eventful year with initiatives like the Cancer Moonshot and the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative gaining traction, and we are ever closer to the entry of digital health in mainstream clinical research. The program for dPharm 2016 suggests that great progress has been made in disruptive innovation in clinical trials. I look forward to hearing all about it in September!
As a member of Lilly’s Clinical Innovation team, a conference like this helps us to pressure test new ideas, learn from other innovators, and inspire the rest of the clinical research community to dream bigger.
In previous years we’ve unveiled new technologies aimed at fixing simple problems like phone tag between patients and sites. We’ve also introduced new things like www.LillyTrialGuide.com. I also like that we can connect to innovative start ups that match our vision of making it easy for patients to participate in research no matter where they are.
This year we are excited to share our work on a ground breaking patient memorial initiative called, The Hero’s Journey (#herosjourneyart). With this effort we aim to take Lilly TrialGuide and trial awareness to the next level. It’s always fun to have a bit of friendly competition to see how we can together make research a truly accessible option for all.
Abbe Steel – Founder & CEO @ HealthiVibe
The old school approach of each phama sponsor developing new processes and products on their own is gone with a new wave of collaboration and connections and this collaborative approach is creating more innovation in trials resulting in faster and less expensive and most importantly patient-friendly research. Attending dPharm and allowing companies to share their innovative models and vision for the future is what I have found most valuable about attending dPharm in prior years. I’m sure this year’s conference will be no less valuable or inspiring.
dPharm is unique because it brings together leaders from not only pharma and pharma service providers, but also from companies outside our pharma bubble. Which is actually pretty rare for pharma industry conferences. Entrepreneurs, developers, patient advocates and even politicians get to mix it up together. We get a chance to truly step out of our day to day lives and challenge each other to think out of the box and think about the possibilities of improving trials of the future. The event is stimulating, provocative and fun. This is what I love about dPharm and what I am looking forward to.
Denis Curtin – Chief Scientific Officer @ mProve Health
I have attended dPharm as both a pharmaceutical company employee and as a founder of a startup company. In both roles, my experience with this conference has been outstanding in that it is the only forum that has consistently offered a unique perspective on both innovative technologies and services impacting clinical trials. It has enabled me to see what is possible through case examples of these innovations being implemented but also how hard it can be to get things started, how many roadblocks are in the way in this industry that prevent new ideas from taking hold. So, when I think about what I have found most valuable in attending dPharm, it has to be that while there are many innovations it is seeing one of them – one that seems great but also particularly challenging to imagine progressing – return as an accepted solution with cases and data demonstrating its value in real trials at a subsequent dPharm session.
Since I have attended the last four sessions, I am most looking forward to seeing which innovation presented at an earlier dPharm will have taken off. I really enjoy seeing the new ideas each year but what impresses me the most are those that continue to make progress toward changing the way we operate clinical research studies. With the continuing industry theme of patient centricity, I will be on the lookout for innovations that are enabling the voice of the patient to be more clearly adopted and those that help patients feel more a part of the process of improving healthcare.
Elisa Cascade – President, Data Solutions @ DrugDev
I find it extremely valuable to speak with other innovative people in the industry and think about how we can work together to change the clinical trials process to do more trials. It’s nice to brainstorm about what could be without being constrained by “that’s not how we do it” or “that violates our SOPs”.
This year I’m looking forward to hearing about what’s new. I especially enjoy the rapid dPharm Idol sessions where we get a quick glance into several different disruptive innovations.
Will we see you there?
If you haven’t registered for dPharm 2016 yet, there’s still time. Use code ‘REB15‘ to get 15% off your registration fee.
Rahlyn Gossen, Founder & Principle of Rebar Interactive is attending dPharm and the conference that immediately precedes it, Mobile in Clinical Trials. If you would like to catch up with Rahlyn at either conference, drop us a note.
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