July 30, 2018 | July was full of exciting news in the clinical trial and healthcare community, including partnerships, products, and promotions from Veeva Systems, the Pistoia Alliance, CRF Health, and more.

Veeva Systems announced that more life sciences companies are adopting Veeva OpenData to empower their field teams with faster, accurate customer data. Veeva OpenData provides access to approximately 16 million healthcare professionals (HCPs) and their healthcare organizations (HCOs) spanning 42 countries. Emerging biopharma and the largest pharmaceutical companies are using Veeva OpenData in various regions to increase field effectiveness and enhance customer engagement. Accurate, actionable data was critical for Nestlé Health Science to improve efficiency of their sales teams. “Veeva OpenData enables our sales reps to be more productive,” said Rick Priem, global CRM manager for Nestlé Health Science, in a press release. “We have the insights we need to better understand what is happening in the field and drive improved customer interactions.” Specialty pharmaceutical company, Indivior, previously had two data systems and worked from 17 different versions of the same data source across North America and Europe. This created an administrative burden on field reps managing customer information and left teams uncertain if they were working from the most current data such as physician addresses and specialty areas. Indivior moved to Veeva OpenData for one complete source of customer reference data to help field teams effectively and compliantly deliver new addiction treatment information to HCPs. Now HCP data is validated easier and faster, resulting in field teams that are confident they are leveraging the right customer information. Press Release

Vyasa Analytics announced that it has received a $1.8 million loan from MassDevelopment’s Emerging Technology Fund. The company will use the funds to hire 18 additional employees in Massachusetts, and build out a GPU-based compute infrastructure in Boston. Vyasa’s secure, highly-scalable deep learning software, Cortex, allows users to apply deep learning analytics to enterprise data. With Cortex, users can ask complex questions about large scale data types like text, images and chemical structures, and discover unexpected patterns, relationships and concepts across disparate sources. MassDevelopment’s Emerging Technology Fund helps to grow technology and advanced manufacturing companies in Massachusetts. Since its creation in 2003, the fund has provided $73.1 million in loans and guarantees to help cutting-edge companies locate or expand in the Commonwealth. Press Release

The Pistoia Alliance has announced that entries for its 2018 President’s Startup Challenge are now open, and will close on Monday, 3rd September 2018. The annual competition is open to informatics and technology startups who are aiming to overcome obstacles to advancing life science R&D. Two of the winners will win $20,000, along with a six-month mentorship with industry professionals from companies including top ten pharmas and other successful startups, and access to Monocl’s stakeholder platform. The remaining finalists will each receive $5,000 towards the further development of their solutions. The competition offers the chance for five finalists to pitch their solutions in-person to a panel of industry judges and experts at The Pistoia Alliance’s annual US conference in Boston, MA, on 10th October, 2018. Entries are welcome from global startups on a range of themes; previous years have included those focused on AI, deep and machine learning, the IoT, blockchain, voice technology, and clinical trial platforms. Press Release

Sanofi and REVOLUTION Medicines announced an exclusive worldwide partnership to develop and commercialize targeted therapies, based on the biology of the cellular enzyme SHP2, for patients with non-small lung cancer and other types of cancer carrying certain mutations. This collaboration builds on precision oncology discoveries by REVOLUTION Medicines and preclinical development of RMC-4630, the company’s lead small molecule inhibitor of SHP2, and will apply Sanofi’s expertise in oncology research and drug development. In the collaboration, the companies will jointly develop SHP2 inhibitors, which are designed to reduce cell growth signaling that is overactive in cancer. Both parties will contribute to the research and development program, with REVOLUTION Medicines continuing to lead research and early clinical development, and Sanofi leading later development activities for the program. The companies expect to begin first-in-human clinical trials with RMC-4630 in the second half of 2018. Press Release

Genstar announced the acquisition of CRF Health. As part of the transaction, CRF will be combined with Bracket, a provider of software and technology-enabled solutions utilized in clinical trials. Bracket is a portfolio company of Genstar. CRF Health has been majority-owned by Vitruvian Partners, a leading growth-and technology-focused investment firm, since 2015. The newly combined organization will drive accelerated value for pharmaceutical companies and CRO customers, providing patient-centric solutions, combined with deep and broad therapeutic area expertise, across a strong and efficient global footprint. The combined company will have over 1,500 employees worldwide, and will be in a position to accelerate the penetration of user-friendly technologies across the clinical trial spectrum – driving the transfer from manual, paper based services to electronic while improving service quality and data integrity. Press Release

Kathleen Anne Welsh-Bohmer has joined the scientific leadership team at NeuroCog Trials (NCT) as the Vice President of Neurodegenerative Disorders. In her new role she will lead the development of new technology and tools to support customers conducting clinical trials for dementia and other cognitive disorders. Having dedicated more than 25 years to research surrounding neurodegenerative disorders that occur later in life, Welsh-Bohmer is a Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at Duke University. She has the highest level of scientific expertise and continues to develop prevention and treatment strategies that help to eliminate the onset of age-related cognitive disorders. Her work includes neuropsychology leadership in the Takeda’s TOMMORROW STUDY, the largest, industry-sponsored, Phase 3 clinical trial of its kind with a focus on the secondary prevention of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) due to AD. The methods her team developed for this study filled an information void and led to the validation of a genetic biomarker that will help to accelerate global clinical trials in AD prevention. Press Release

Clinerion has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the P-HIS Development Group of Korea University Medical Center (KUMC) to support the KUMC’s activities in developing a patient data platform in the Republic of Korea, in particular for precision medicine. Clinerion’s contribution will involve implementation and use of its Patient Network Explorer solution. The government of the Republic of Korea has created a National Key Project dedicated to precision medicine, involving both the Ministry of Science and IT and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The KUMC leads this project, with twin pillars being the development of a universal common data model (as part of the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) consortium) and a precision medicine cloud HIS platform (P-HIS). Both pillars will support the provision of a patient data platform which can be used for analysis for precision medicine. The Clinerion Patient Network Explorer (formerly PRS) enables the query of patient data from partner hospitals without compromising patient data privacy and without the data needing to leave the hospital IT infrastructure. The results of the queries are seen only as counts of patients matching inclusion/exclusion criteria; however, partner hospitals have a method of identifying matching anonymized patients for enrollment in clinical trials via Clinerion’s proprietary “Anonymized Identification” technology. Press Release

Elligo Health Research has appointed former founder, executive chairman and CEO of Greenway Health, Wyche T. “Tee” Green III, as a director. Green has been a force behind the health care information technology (IT) movement since he co-founded Greenway Medical Technologies (now Greenway Health) in 1998. Bridging the gap between clinical research and physician practices is the focus of Elligo’s approach. Green, who has dedicated nearly two decades to integrating and streamlining clinical, financial, administrative and patient-facing health care information systems, will provide Elligo with invaluable insight. While at Greenway, he invested in bringing clinical trials to thousands of providers and patients with a single mission: to improve health. “We are honored and excited that Tee Green has accepted our invitation to join the board of directors,” said John Potthoff, CEO of Elligo, in a press release. “This is a great leap for Elligo. We look forward to working with Tee as we refine our information systems and seek out new ways to make life-changing research accessible to all.” Press Release