September 12, 2012 | The Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) and Critical Path Institute (C-Path) have announced the launch of the Coalition For Accelerating Standards and Therapies (CFAST), a follow-up to the partnership agreement signed earlier this year. The official launch of CFAST will take place at the CDISC 2012 International Interchange in Baltimore, Maryland (24-26 October 2012).  

CFAST is an initiative to accelerate clinical research and medical product development by facilitating the creation and maintenance of data standards, tools, and methods for conducting research in therapeutic areas important to public health. To date, CDISC has either released draft or provisional standards packages covering five different disease areas: Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Tuberculosis, Virology and Pain. Upcoming releases will include therapeutic area standards packages for Polycystic Kidney Disease, Cardiovascular Disease and Schizophrenia.  

Dr. Carolyn Compton, C-Path President and CEO, says in a statement: “CFAST will serve as a strong partner assisting the FDA in meeting their PDUFA V performance goals of ‘improving efficiency of human drug review through required data submissions standardization.’ We are optimistic that this partnership will truly make a difference in the review process.”   

Paula Brown Stafford, Chair of the CDISC Board says, “The CDISC Board of Directors encourages attendance at the Interchange by leaders in the healthcare and technology fields. We welcome participation to help inform patient care and safety through higher quality medical research.”  

Interchange attendees can participate in discussions with a number of thought leaders who are actively working to improve public health. Keynote speakers include Dr. Janet Woodcock of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Ann Martin of Europe’s Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).  Patient advocacy groups with participating representation include One Mind for Research, DataSphere (a biopharma data sharing initiative), the Vradenburg Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Other participating organizations are the Japan Translational Research Informatics Institute, the U.S. National Cancer Institute, the Texas eHealth Alliance, Duke University and the University of Rochester.  

Registration for the CDISC 2012 International Interchange is open. For more details, visit http://www.cdisc.org/interchange. There are also educational course openings and related meetings. 

The CDISC 2012 International Interchange is funded in large part through the generous contributions of member companies. Sponsors of this year’s International Interchange include Digital Infuzion, SAS, Octagon Research Solutions, Percept Pharma, Edetek and Pinnacle 21.  Sponsorship opportunities remain available.  See http://www.cdisc.org/interchange.