BBK Worldwide News
BBK Worldwide Celebrates 25th Anniversary of Industry Leadership Through Innovation in Patient Enrollment
NEWTON, Mass., June 25 PRNewswire — BBK Worldwide, an innovator and leader in global patient recruitment for clinical trials, marks its 25th anniversary this year with a variety of initiatives to make its quarter-century of expertise more accessible to and beneficial for the life-sciences industry.
These efforts include a recent groundbreaking knowledge and technology transfer agreement between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Lombardia region of Italy, and follow the recent release of BBK's comprehensive industry guidebook, Reinventing Patient Recruitment: Revolutionary Ideas for Clinical Trial Success, authored by the firm's co-founders, Bonnie A. Brescia, president, and Joan F. Bachenheimer, CEO and director of creative strategies.
"Just as business incubators accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of support services, our aim has always been — and continues to be — to accelerate the patient enrollment process, helping sponsors conduct appropriate research with as many patients as possible," Brescia said.
"Since BBK opened its doors in July 1983, we've amassed a considerable body of knowledge regarding successful patient enrollment in clinical trials," Bachenheimer added. "We believe that transfer of this knowledge can contribute to enhancing the drug development process and reducing cycle time, which ultimately gets new medications to doctors and patients as expeditiously as possible."
BBK's current efforts include participation in the Clinical Research Consortium of Massachusetts (CRCM), a group of four organizations selected by the Massachusetts Office of International Trade and Investment to help Italy's Lombardia region attract more clinical studies and commercialize medical research. For Massachusetts biotech firms, Lombardia promises increased opportunities to expand their service offerings into Italy, providing additional sites for conducting clinical trials and otherwise furthering drug development.
"While this initiative is growing out of a partnership between Massachusetts and Lombardia, it ultimately will serve as a resource to global clinical trial sponsors regardless of where they are based," Brescia said. "We're confident it will become an invaluable forum for international knowledge transfer, and a model for creating centers of excellence like this in other regions of the world. In fact, the CRCM has already begun talks with the Chilean government about launching a similar initiative."
The CRCM also includes Tufts Medical Center and the Sackler School for Graduate Biomedical Sciences of Tufts University; Court Square Group, a Springfield-based IT consulting firm for life sciences; and Phase Forward of Waltham, a clinical trials software firm.
The centerpiece of the CRCM's efforts is a multi-phase project linking public health policy, clinical and translational research, and academic research to create a regional center of excellence that will provide streamlined access to support resources for both clinical trial sponsors and researchers in the Lombardia region, known as "the biotechnology capital of Europe."
"Establishing a center of research excellence in Lombardia will facilitate giant strides in enhancing drug development and getting new treatments to market sooner by improving access to an otherwise sophisticated and resource-rich region," Brescia says.
On another front, BBK has partnered with TCN e-Systems, LLC, to develop two Web-based solutions to help clinical trial sponsors establish and sustain an in-house center of excellence in patient recruitment. Called "Center of Excellence" and QuickTrainer(SM), these products follow the intuitive design of their flagship product, TrialCENTRALNet(SM), which also serves as the technology backbone. TrialCENTRALNet provides an online infrastructure for planning, conducting and managing patient recruitment, instantly centralizing all related communications, data, reporting, and information for a single clinical study, or a suite of studies.
"Through our hands-on experience with hundreds of clinical trials, we've learned that it's not a matter of spending more time on recruitment; it's about recognizing patient recruitment as a distinct discipline and giving all study community members access to its principles," says Bachenheimer. "BBK's current initiatives are designed to do just that."
BBK and TCN e-Systems will showcase "Center of Excellence" and QuickTrainer at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Drug Information Association in Boston from June 22 - 26, 2008 at booth #711.
About BBK Worldwide
Founded in 1983 by Joan F. Bachenheimer and Bonnie A. Brescia, BBK Worldwide is a patient recruitment and e-business solution company for the clinical R&D and product marketing segments of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries. BBK has helped to accelerate time to market for new medicines and treatments by successfully supporting hundreds of clinical studies in more than 60 countries, and in all major therapeutic areas. Staffed by some of the industry's principal thought leaders, BBK continually contributes ideas that advance the clinical development cycle. (http://www.bbkworldwide.com)
About TCN e-Systems, LLC
TCN e-Systems, located in Newton, Mass., is an e-recruitment company focused on streamlining patient enrollment for life-sciences companies through Web-based product suites that are designed to respond to the six enrollment risk areas. Founded in October 2006 by Joan F. Bachenheimer and Bonnie A. Brescia, also founding principals of industry-leading patient recruitment company BBK Worldwide, TCN e-Systems is built on 25 years of patient recruitment expertise and industry thought leadership. With years of development in actual clinical trial recruitment campaigns, TCN e-Systems' technology is time-tested and proven to create faster and more successful patient enrollment. (http://www.tcnesystems.com)
Contact: Elizabeth Gargill BBK Worldwide Phone: +1.617.630.5513 E-mail: egargill@bbkworldwide.com
SOURCE BBK Worldwide
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