ACRES Announces Innovative Clinical Research Event - SYNERGY

The Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety (ACRES), a Massachusetts-based multi-stakeholder, non-profit organization dedicated to transforming the medical products development process through creation of a shared global system for clinical research, announced today that it will launch SYNERGY, an innovative new type of clinical research event in Boston, October 1-2, 2015.

“The future of clinical research is changing,” said Greg Koski, PhD, MD, Co-founder and CEO of ACRES, “and so far, despite our best intentions, efforts at ‘disruptive change’ have done little to fundamentally alter current processes. True innovation requires both systems thinking and the synergy that results when diverse stakeholders across the entire research endeavor interact and actively collaborate to achieve systems solutions. SYNERGY, using a new event format, will provide this opportunity,” Koski added.

“Computer scientist, Alan Kay, once said that ‘the best way to predict the future is to invent it’. SYNERGY, will bring ACRES allies and other stakeholders together in a person-to-person format to do just that—directly participate in designing the future of clinical research,” said Dr. Mary Tobin, Special Adviser to Koski and principal architect of the new format. “SYNERGY participants will realize immediate benefits by building new business relationships, and solidifying existing ones, in a face-to-face environment, while contributing directly to design and implementation of a shared, integrated global clinical research system,” Tobin predicted.

“Using the stories of key leaders and facilitated cross-sector discussions, participants will examine mistakes being made throughout the clinical research ecosystem and share lessons learned, as they identify opportunities and systems solutions. There will not only be an abundance of applicable solutions to “take home” and apply, but an appreciation for innovative systems thinking as well,” said Tobin.

“The present situation calls for action, not just talking or listening and that is why SYNERGY is a different kind of event,” said ACRES COO, Matt Whalen, PhD. ”SYNERGY will abandon a simple “talking-heads” content-flow model in favor of an interactive, personally engaging, solution-generating model—every attendee will be a participating thought-leader.” said Whalen.

The ACRES Alliance assembles a large and growing number of systems-minded organizations, companies and individuals from across the clinical research enterprise worldwide that recognize the need for—and are working together to build—a shared global system for safe, high-performance, clinical research—Accountable Research™ . The Alliance, now with nearly 80 organizations and growing, provides a neutral third-party way to bring together sponsors, CROs, IRBs and ethics committees, research sites, regulatory agencies, patient groups, standards organizations and others, including industry, academic and professional organizations. A global initiative, ACRES is engaged with and supported by many diverse stakeholders worldwide such as Astra Zeneca, ACRP, BRANY, HealthCarePoint, Fujitsu, Forte Research Systems, DIA, ACPU, InnovoCommerce, DrugDev, Pfizer, Takeda, Quintiles, inVentiv, University of Nebraska Medical Center, IACRN, IFAPP, CDISC, SAFE Biopharma Association, Global MD, Clinical Trials Ontario, KoNECT, Hearst Publishing and many more.

SYNERGY is being produced in association with the International Institute for Business Information & Growth LLC (iiBIG), a business-to-business conference company based in New York, and an ACRES strategic ally. As such, iiBIG is providing all business management, marketing, sales and logistical support for SYNERGY, while the ACRES team is exclusively responsible for developing the content. Under terms of their agreement, iiBIG will donate 100% of after-expense conference revenue to ACRES in support of its multi-stakeholder public interest mission.

“My firm has been involved in presenting clinical research conferences for over eight years, but we have never done anything like this,” said Don Buford, CEO of iiBIG. “We are excited to be working with Greg Koski and the innovative team at ACRES. While there are many outstanding conferences that teach people how to improve specific processes or to do specific tasks more efficiently, they do not address how individual components work together as parts of a streamlined and integrated system—that is what SYNERGY is all about.”

Registration to attend SYNERGY, October 1-2, 2015 in Boston, is now open.