Cambridge Healthtech Institute's 7th Annual

Risk-Based Quality Management

Integrating Quality into Clinical Trials to Ensure Effective Monitoring

March 2 - 3, 2021 ALL TIMES EST

Poor quality and risk management of clinical trials significantly impact the success, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness of clinical trials. CHI’s 7th Annual Risk-Based Quality Management conference provides lessons learned, case studies, and ample discussion on building and maintaining proper clinical quality management systems with emphasis on the latest quality standards and guidelines, including recent changes to ensure higher-quality clinical trials and laying the foundation for successful risk-based monitoring. The program will focus on how to implement RBQM into clinical, trials, Quality by Design and risk management in clinical trials, Quality tolerance limits (QTLs) and key risk indicators (KRIs), as well as impacts of COVID-19.

Tuesday, March 2

THE ACCELERATION OF DRUG DEVELOPMENT DUE TO THE PANDEMIC

8:00 am LIVE PLENARY PRESENTATION:

Delivering When It Matters, COVID-19 Edition: Pfizer’s Vaccine Trial Execution Strategies and Technology-Enabled Operations

Panel Moderator:
Demetris Zambas, Vice President & Global Head, Data Monitoring & Management, Pfizer Inc.

Pfizer has been collaborating across the healthcare innovation ecosystem to address the COVID-19 global health care crisis. Pfizer’s stage III coronavirus vaccine trial has enrolled more than 44,000 volunteers and will be completed by the time of the conference. This outstanding effort required leadership, focus and dedication of the entire company and critical stakeholders. All of the industry’s and company’s previous work and innovations were pressure tested to meet the challenging scope of the trial. With a critical global need, the only gauge had to be the “speed of science” with all appropriate quality controls. This panel will discuss Pfizer’s vaccine trial execution strategies and technology-boosted operations.

Panelists:
Brett Wilson, Senior Director, Vaccines TA Lead Data Monitoring & Management, Global Biometrics & Data Management, Global Product Development, Pfizer Inc.
Ralph Russo, Senior Director & Global Head, Clinical Database Management, Pfizer Inc.
Nicholas Kitchin, MD, Senior Director, Vaccine Clinical Research and Development, Pfizer
Helen Smith, Senior Director, Clinical Study Team Lead, CD and O, Pfizer
Liping Zhang, Senior Director, Vaccines Statistical Programming and Analysis Lead, Pfizer Inc
Darren Cowan, Executive Director & Area Head USA, Canada, Pfizer
Beth Paulukonis, Executive Director, Study Management Group Lead, Clinical Development and Operations, Pfizer
9:30 am

PLENARY PRESENTATION: Fireside Chat: Accelerated Drug Development in Response to the Pandemic: Lessons Learned and Key Drivers

Panel Moderator:
Deborah Borfitz, Lead Contributor, Publications, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

Companies adopting tech per Covid, perpetual proof of concept and pilot mode needs to stop, is response to Covid temp or a new normal? Lessons learned is important, but look ahead to 4,000+ active studies still happening in other indications/diseases! Covid burn out. The drug dev paradigm is out of date! What were the accelerants? So, lasting lessons from pandemic are not tactics but behaviors. The cat is out of the bag on the need and desire for more remote/virtual trials – especially if you ask a patient!

Panelists:
Ken Getz, MBA, Founder, CISCRP; Deputy Director, Center for the Study of Drug Development, Tufts University School of Medicine
Leonard Sacks, MD, Associate Director, Clinical Methodology, Office of Medical Policy, CDER, FDA

LESSONS FROM COVID-19: HOW A RISK-BASED APPROACH CAN IMPROVE CLINICAL TRIALS IN A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD

9:55 am

LIVE: CO-PRESENTATION: Case Study — RBQM/CM Implementation: Lessons from Pfizer's COVID Vaccine Trial

Nechama Katan, Associate Director, Data Monitoring and Management, Clinical Sciences and Operations, Global Product Development, Pfizer
Steve Young, CSO, CluePoints

Explore how RBQM Central Monitoring was leveraged by the COVID vaccine study team at Pfizer to improve quality and proactively identify and address issues. Due to the size and speed of the trial, RBQM/central monitoring needed to be tweaked and thought of in a fresh way. Both process and tools used, and tips and tricks to engage the whole study team in RBQM/CM will be shared.

10:15 am

Assessing Quality for Clinical Trial Recruitment Decisions

Ozgur Ozkan, IT Director, R&D IT, Janssen R&D

We apply a common framework to assess the quality of recruitment decisions and identify common issues leading to deviations from plan. Although the recruitment problem can be framed clearly and clinical teams come up with innovative alternatives, recruitment predictions may suffer from lack of relevant insights or plans may not be aligned with operational objectives. Even if we apply a sound rationale to come up with the best plan, we would need commitment from various groups to execute on it. Investigation of the decision quality elements has potential to maximize our learnings from the past.

Lisa Moneymaker, Vice President, Clinical Operations Technology, Medidata, a Dassault Systèmes company
Nicole Stansbury, Vice President, Global Centralized Monitoring, Syneos Health

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, optimized clinical trial operations has been a key differentiator for trial continuity. Companies with robust processes for centralized monitoring, remote data and document review, and flexible on-site interactions, were successful in pivoting during the pandemic. Learn how Medidata is driving technology for optimized trial design and execution, early risk and issue detection, and improved relationships with sites, on a scale never before seen in clinical trials.

10:55 am

Risk Management to Mitigate the Impacts of a Global Pandemic on Specimen Collections in Clinical Trials

Michael Tanen, Director, Clinical Biomarker Specimen Management, Merck & Co.

When facing a global pandemic, we needed to rapidly develop scenarios and generate risk assessments and strategies to serve our subjects and patients under care in our clinical trials.  Understanding the relationship between global trial sites and Covid-19 hotspots allowed us to focus our resources in critical regions and on specific issues that had the potential to affect our ability to provide continuous support to our participants and sites worldwide.  


Steve Young, CSO, CluePoints

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a significant acceleration in the industry’s adoption of RBQM core principles over the past year.   This has brought with it an ever-increasing body of evidence confirming the effectiveness and high value that this new paradigm offers.  This presentation will provide a summary of this compelling evidence including recent use cases and relevant metrics, along with a review of best practices associated with RBQM success.

11:35 am Tech Break, Transition to Live Q&A
11:45 am LIVE PANEL DISCUSSION:

Advancing RBQM: Lessons from the Trenches

Panel Moderator:
Nechama Katan, Associate Director, Data Monitoring and Management, Clinical Sciences and Operations, Global Product Development, Pfizer
Panelists:
Steve Young, CSO, CluePoints
Lisa Moneymaker, Vice President, Clinical Operations Technology, Medidata, a Dassault Systèmes company
Nicole Stansbury, Vice President, Global Centralized Monitoring, Syneos Health
12:10 pm Session Break - Visit Our Virtual Exhibit Hall
Billy Byrom, VP Product Intelligence & Positioning, Marketing, Signant Health

RISK-BASED QUALITY MANAGEMENT: METRICS, QTLs AND KRIs

1:00 pm

Rethinking Risk-Based Monitoring Functional Metrics Portfolio

Vera Pomerantseva, Strategy Insights & Planning Manager, Quality & Risk Management, ZS Associates

Metrics measure performance and progress, but also can tell a story and give a sense of direction. Despite being in the pharma space for a while,  RBM remains an evolving area. It is rapidly changing – so do metrics. Many established functions were going down the same path: user experience, risk management, project management, quality and some others. This presentation is an attempt to leverage their experience and benchmark with the current RBM metrics portfolio.

1:20 pm

Sponsor’s Learning Curve in QTLs Set Up  

Adam Czernik, Director, Risk-Based Monitoring and Central Monitoring, Janssen

In context of Covid-19 pandemic Janssen has developed a QTL dashboard focused specifically on missed critical data (endpoint, safety) potentially impacting ongoing studies’ validity. Setting up QTLs, and monitoring across several studies at once, allowed gathering robust experience and mobilized organizational learning of QTLs. The experiences are also used for development and implementation of full QTL process in Janssen.

Amanda Steenbergen, Senior Director, Global Clinical Training, WCG Trifecta
2:00 pm

Increased Clinical Research Resilience through Essential RBQM Feedback Loops

Melissa Suprin, Head, Quality Risk Management, Clinical Development, Pfizer, Inc.

The TransCelerate QMS and RBM initiatives can help sponsors lay a foundation for risk-based quality management (RBQM). Implemented holistically, RBQM can increase the resilience of the clinical research environment during crisis situations, e.g. COVID-19. Essential feedback loops provide insight on how components are performing. Potential problem areas are identified via risk management plans and data collection. Response to quality signals can be addressed in study level risk management plans.

2:20 pm

Fireside Chat: Understanding Coronaviruses and Protection Against Mutated Strains of COVID-19

Panel Moderator:
Alex Philippidis, Senior News Editor, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

The rise of a highly-contagious COVID-19 variant has highlighted the importance of developing vaccines that induce broadly reactive antibodies capable of offering potential for protection from mutated strains of COVID-19 that may continue to emerge over time. The challenge the industry is facing is not only prioritizing how to end the ongoing pandemic, but also how to optimize vaccines for long-term protection against coronaviruses. With the goal of developing vaccines that add meaningful clinical benefit to the group already approved, VBI is progressing two vaccine candidates – a monovalent COVID-19 candidate and a trivalent broad-spectrum coronavirus candidate, which in preclinical studies induced reactive antibodies against COVID-19, SARS, MERS, and a seasonal variant HCoV-OC43. 

Panelists:
David Anderson, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Research & Development, VBI Vaccines, Inc.
Jeff Baxter, President & CEO, VBI Vaccines Inc.
2:40 pm Tech Break, Transition to Live Panel Discussion
2:50 pm LIVE PANEL DISCUSSION:

Risk-Based Quality Management: Metrics, QTLs and KRIs

Panel Moderator:
Vera Pomerantseva, Strategy Insights & Planning Manager, Quality & Risk Management, ZS Associates
Panelists:
Adam Czernik, Director, Risk-Based Monitoring and Central Monitoring, Janssen
Melissa Suprin, Head, Quality Risk Management, Clinical Development, Pfizer, Inc.

CREATIVITY AND ENGAGEMENT IN RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION COMMUNICATIONS: SCOPE’S PARTICIPANT ENGAGEMENT AWARDS

3:15 pm LIVE:

SCOPE’s 2021 Participant Engagement Awards

Panel Moderator:
David Sall, President & CEO, Marketing, Patient Enrollment Advisors LLC

Designed to inspire innovation and change in how the industry communicates with participants in the fields of recruitment and retention in clinical trials, this award embodies the values and personal accomplishments of Jerry Matczak, who sadly passed away soon after receiving the 2017 award. We dedicate this award to Jerry in the hope that it will serve as a reminder of his ideals and accomplishments.

SCOPE’s 2021 Participant Engagement Award program is brought to you by Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI)’s SCOPE.

Panelists:
Kelly McKee, Senior Director, Patient Recruitment and Registries, Medidata Solutions
Phyllis Kaplan, Trial Volunteer and Patient Advocate; Senior Manager, Events & Community Engagement, Center for Information & Study on Clinical Research Participation (CISCRP)
Ramona Burress, Assoc Dir, Diversity & Inclusion in Clinical Trials, Janssen R&D LLC
Irfan Khan, CEO, Circuit Clinical
4:05 pm Interactive Breakout Discussions - Visit Our Virtual Exhibit Hall

Join your colleagues and fellow delegates for a focused, informal discussion moderated by a member of our speaking faculty. A small group format allows participants to meet potential collaborators, share examples from their own work and discuss ideas with peers. View all topics here.

Bernadette Tosti, Vice President, Patient Experience, Science 37
Lindsay Singler, Director, Research Communications & Engagement, Operations Management Team, Duke Clinical Research Institute

Current events have driven pediatric clinical research to be more flexible and efficient—to increase patient access and enhance the patient experience both during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. With increased regulatory support for direct-to-family (decentralized) trials, learn how to leverage technology to safely and efficiently conduct research using a current, real-life example of trial design.

4:40 pm Close of Day

Wednesday, March 3

RBQM STRATEGY AND THE PATH FORWARD TO BETTER CLINICAL TRIALS FROM CONCEPT TO CONCLUSION

9:00 am

The Regulatory Path (ICH Renovation) to Quality by Design

Andy Lawton, Dir & Consultant, Risk Based Approach Ltd

The ICH (GCP) renovation covers both ICH E8 and  ICH E6 R3. This presentation takes an holistic view of the changes as well as the benefits that everyone involved with pharmaceutical development (sponsors and CROs) Will receive. But to achieve the benefits that come from QbD a holistic approach to QbD, via risk management and QTLs must be taken.

Gordon Thomson, Director Clinical Systems, Business Technology Group, Covance by Labcorp

One of the pillars to a successful trial is data management. The data management workflows have been manual in many aspects including review, cleaning, oversight and reporting heavily reliant on Excel. RBQM concepts, including quality by design, risk-based approaches, automation and aggregation, and transparent reporting can be applied to these workflows, bringing substantial improvement to processes, collaboration and oversight.

9:40 am

Beyond COVID-19: The New Normal in Clinical Research and How a Risk Based Approach is Necessary

Panel Moderator:
Laurie Halloran, President & CEO, Halloran Consulting Group Inc.

As we entered a new normal at the tail end of COVID-19, we took lessons learned from the experience and applied them to how we continue to conduct clinical trials to produce new therapies for the patients we serve. We needed to look beyond the pandemic to design and plan resilient clinical trials with the ability to withstand future pandemics and mitigate some of these key challenges. During this session, the panel will discuss some of the ways we examined and implemented a better way to do clinical trials from concept through conclusion. 

Panelists:
Valerie Reynaert, Executive Director & Head, Global Clinical Operations, CSL Behring
Joe Dustin, Head of Clinical Innovation, Bristol-Myers Squibb
Marie Rosenfeld, Vice President, Clinical Science, Astellas
Manny Lazaro, Vice President & Head, Global Development Operations, Jounce Therapeutics Inc.
10:20 am Tech Break, Transition to Live Roundtable Discussion
10:30 am BREAKOUT DISCUSSION

BREAKOUT: Advancing RBQM: Tools, Strategies and Lessons Learned from COVID-19

Andy Lawton, Dir & Consultant, Risk Based Approach Ltd
Keith Dorricott, Ambassador, Metrics Champion Consortium
Jennifer Bolton, Senior Fellow, Regulatory Affairs, Boston Scientific Corporation
Teri Takle-Flach, Director, Clinical Operations, Boston Scientific Corp.
Todd Johnson, MPH, MBA, Principal Consultant, Organizational Solutions, Halloran Consulting Group
Vani Nilakantan, PhD, Vice President, Research, Allina Health System
Michael Tanen, Director, Clinical Biomarker Specimen Management, Merck & Co.
Joseph Yoder, Clinical Data Analyst, Data & Statistical Sciences, AbbVie, Inc.
Sarah Bednarski, MS, Director, Strategic Monitoring Analytics, Clinical Operations, Sunovion Pharmaceuticals
Steve Young, CSO, CluePoints
Darren Weston, Vice President, Integrated Data Analytics & Reporting (IDAR), Janssen
Jonathan Rowe, Associate Principal, ZS Associates
Kristin Stallcup, MS, PMP, Senior Director, RBQM Customer Success, Covance by Labcorp
Beenu Kapoor, Vice President, IT Trial Management & Digital Trial Management Suite (DTMS) Lead, IQVIA

ENHANCING PATIENT-SITE CENTRICITY AND CLINICAL INNOVATION THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

10:55 am KEYNOTE PRESENTATION:

COVID-19: How an External Event Redoubled Janssen’s Culture of Innovation

Darren Weston, Vice President, Integrated Data Analytics & Reporting (IDAR), Janssen

The external threat posed by the pandemic forced Janssen to reckon with longstanding cultural barriers to innovation. Faced with an urgent need to ensure patient safety and continuity of care, Janssen found a way to overcome these barriers and evolve the way they conduct clinical trials. Not only did Janssen minimize overall trial impact, but Janssen’s clinical operations have become more efficient and resilient in the face of future challenges. We will discuss the cultural and operational adaptations Janssen undertook to adapt to the pandemic environment and how we see these actions positioning us for the future.

11:20 am KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: Virtual Investigator Meetings During COVID-19 & Beyond
Steven Sulkin, Founder & CEO, SimuLyve International, Inc.®

Steven Sulkin, CEO, SimuLyve International

Marina Ziehn, PhD, Global Med. Affairs Dir. Neuroscience, Novartis

Markus Krüer, PhD, Head Clinical Project Mgt, Merz

Nico Wegener, PhD, Senior Clinical Project Mgr, Merz

Dave Matthews, Clinical Project Dir., Merz

 

Training worldwide staff on complicated protocols virtually with the added issue of language barriers can seem daunting. Our panel of virtual experts will show you how to perfect virtual skills and enhance virtual meetings.

 

11:20 am KEYNOTE PRESENTATION:

Option 2: New Players and Innovators in Clinical Trials, the Impact of Non-Pharma Entrants...Meet Salesforce and CVS Health

Shwen Gwee, Vice President & Head, Global Digital Strategy, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
Gary Gabriel, PhD, Healthcare and Life Sciences Lead, Salesforce
Lou Sanquini, Vice President, Life Sciences Group, CVS Health
11:45 am Tech Break, Transition to Interactive Breakout Discussions
12:00 pm Interactive Breakout Discussions - Visit Our Virtual Exhibit Hall

Join your colleagues and fellow delegates for a focused, informal discussion moderated by a member of our speaking faculty. A small group format allows participants to meet potential collaborators, share examples from their own work and discuss ideas with peers. View all topics here.


BREAKOUT: Decentralized and Hybrid Trials: COVID-19 as an Accelerator

Jane Jacob, PhD, Vice President, Research & Clinical Affairs, Synergy Disc Replacement, Inc.
Laurie Halloran, President & CEO, Halloran Consulting Group Inc.
Matthew Moyer, Director Clinical Supply Technology, Global Clinical Supply, Merck & Co. Inc.
Vani Nilakantan, PhD, Vice President, Research, Allina Health System
Laura Whitmore, Head, Clinical Operations, Cerevel Therapeutics LLC
Nikala Kwech, eCOA Operations Lead, Data Sciences, AbbVie Inc.
Hassan Kadhim, Director & Head, Clinical Trial Business Capabilities, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
Angie Botto-Van Bemden, PhD, Patient Advocate, Musculoskeletal Research International
David Fauvart, Associate Director, Janssen Clinical Innovation, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical R&D
Michele Teufel, Patient & Site Engagement Lead, Development Operations, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Michael Mclaughlin, Associate Director, Clinical Operations, Dermavant Sciences Inc.
Anthony Costello, President, Patient Cloud, Medidata, a Dassault Systèmes Company
Isaac Rodriguez-Chavez, Senior Vice President for Scientific and Clinical Affairs, Digital Health, PRA Health Sciences
Robert Loll, Senior Vice President, Business Development & Strategic Planning, Praxis Communications, LLC
Chris Varner, Associate Director, Virtual Trial Solutions, IQVIA
12:30 pm Session Break - Visit Our Virtual Exhibit Hall
Leon Sun, Chief Science Officer, RA,PV,MD, Beijing Highthink Technology Co., Ltd

Founded in 2006, Highthinkmed is the fastest growing clinical CRO in China with over 800 full time employees, providing one-stop clinical services including clinical operation, medical affairs, data management, biostatistics, pharmacovigilance, regulatory affairs etc. Highthinkmed owes its own eCTD system meeting requirements of FDA, EMA and NMPA with a professional team providing eCTD submission services. Highthinkmed welcomes all partners across the world for international collaboration.

Tim Corbett-Clark, BA, MA, DPhil (oxon), Chief Technology Officer, Cmed Technology

Cmed Technology CTO, Dr. Tim Corbett-Clark shares his views on the current landscape within clinical trials, discussing the challenges that point and unified solutions bring. He also examines how to best optimize clinical trial data workflows by bringing the tech to data, removing the silos, and eliminating the barriers to getting holistic data for total control and visibility from phase one to four.

1:15 pm Close of Risk-Based Quality Management Conference





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