Genentech Supports New STEM Initiative
Genentech has launched Futurelab, a collaborative program with the South San Francisco Unified School District to support science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. Futurelab builds on Genentech’s long-standing commitment to science education and seeks to make a difference in the lives of local students, empower teachers, and inspire employees. Through the program, South San Francisco students at every grade level will have opportunities to engage in STEM. Futurelab includes plans for the creation of Science Garage, a state-of-the-art biotech classroom space at South San Francisco High School. The Genentech Foundation intends to fund the construction of a 8,000 square-foot, stand-alone building, with a proposed completion date of 2017.
PTC Therapeutics Launches Grant Award Program
PTC Therapeutics has launched STRIVE (Strategies to Realize Innovation, Vision and Empowerment), an awards program aimed at providing funds to patient advocacy organizations to develop unique and collaborative programs that will make meaningful contributions to the rare disease community. The program, in its inaugural year, will focus on Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).
“From the time PTC was founded, patient organizations have been valuable partners to us and have played important roles in our research and development programs. We are excited to support these groups and enable them to use their creativity and experience to raise awareness and make a difference for the DMD community," says Stuart Peltz, Ph.D., CEO of PTC Therapeutics.
GSK Asthma Care Program Addresses Health disparities
New data from a school asthma management program, Building Bridges for Asthma Care, show a significant decrease in school absenteeism among children with asthma from inner-city schools who were enrolled in the program. Absences dropped 11.75% among children enrolled in Building Bridges, compared with an increase of 8.48% in children with asthma not in the program.
Building Bridges is a school-based program designed to empower nurses in participating elementary schools to ensure that asthmatic children are identified and provided care according to the National Institute of Health’s clinical treatment guidelines. It is a collaboration between GlaxoSmithKline, Children’s Hospital Colorado, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, National Jewish Health, Rho and the public school systems in Denver and Hartford.
Opiate Users at Risk for Misuse
About 13% of opiate users are at risk for chronic use and account for 92% of an employer’s overall opiate healthcare costs, according to a recent analysis from Healthentic.
Seven percent of people who have been prescribed an opioid in the past four years have two or more causes for concern with chronic use. The causes for concern are: 10 or more opioid prescriptions, or a prescribed supply for 120 days or more, or a week or more of overlapping opioid or benzodiazepine prescriptions.
“Our hope is this analysis provides further insight into the societal and financial issue of prescription painkillers, and helps employers take strides in alleviating the problem to ensure the well-being of their people," says Jeff O’Mara, CEO of Healthentic.(PV)
Awards…
ClinGenuity Named Cool Vendor
Certara, a biosimulation technology-enabled drug development consultancy and its ClinGenuity company, was named a Cool Vendor in Gartner’s 2015 Life Sciences report. ClinGenuity was acquired by Synchrogenix, Certara’s regulatory writing company, in January 2015. Synchrogenix uses an AI/natural language recognition and processing engine to identify individual words, parts of speech, word combinations, and phrase combinations.
Parexel is Recognized for Digital Communications
Parexel has been awarded a 2015 Gold Quill Merit Award from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). The award recognized the company for developing creative, engaging digital communications with messaging that effectively reaches target audiences. In a separate recognition, Parexel’s Drew Garty, senior director, product management, was named the 2015 Clinical Innovator of the Year by Partnerships in Clinical Trials. The honor recognizes his leadership of the product development team for the company’s Perceptive MyTrials solution.
Physicians Interactive Honored for Commitment to Healthcare
Chairman and CEO of Physicians Interactive Donato Tramuto received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Massachusetts Lowell at its commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 16. Mr. Tramuto was recognized for his commitment to healthcare access and life-sciences thought leadership. He is also the founder of Health eVillages, a nonprofit organization in partnership with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights that brings state-of-the-art mobile technology with embedded, trusted medical content to the most remote areas of the world. Mr. Tramuto has also been named as a PharmaVOICE 100 and Red Jacket honoree.
Rising Star Jennifer Wellman
Spark Therapeutics’ named Jennifer Wellman, co-founder and head of regulatory strategy, as a 2015 Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Rising Star. Her strong scientific background in gene therapy and business instincts make her an asset to the overall success of the organization.
eBooks
Your Patients Are Here: Where to Recruit and How to Retain Highly Engaged Patients
Provided by: DAC Patient Recruitment Service
The Drug Development Journey
Provided by: PAREXEL
Podcast
Partnering with Patients:
A Game-changer for Patient Advocacy Groups and Pharma
Provided By: inVentiv Health
White Papers
Putting Volunteers First: What Every Clinical Team Should Consider Before Developing the Next Protocol
Provided
Provided By: Fisher Clinical Services
The New Partnership Paradigm: What Patient Advocates Seek from Pharmaceutical Partners
Provided By: inVentiv Health
Advancing Pharmaceutical Sales Models with Innovative Tele-sales Solutions
Provided By: Tunstall Americas
Upcoming Webinars
Structured Content Management:
A Sanofi Case Study
Date: June 3, 2015
Sponsored by: DitaExchange
On-Demand Webinars:
Vascular Health Profiling Proactively Measures MACE Risk
Sponsored by: CytoVas
Easy Implementation of a Clinical Data Repository: A Business Critical Platform
Sponsored by: eClinical Solutions