On May 18, the GLSA and FOCM held their monthly online networking event. We always start the meeting with some time for people to give an update on any news they’re heard or a significant event that has happened in the past month. Then we move to a featured presenter for 10 – 15 minutes presenting information about themselves, their company or a clinical research topic of relevance to them or to the industry.
This event featured Alison Macpherson, CEO and Founder of Bright Pharmaceutical Services, a full service CRO headquartered in Los Angeles. Bright is celebrating their 20th year in business! Allison talked about her experiences starting out in the clinical trials industry and how that led to her forming Bright with a boutique sponsor-centric approach and a focus on subject recruitment and retention. The company has worked in a variety of therapeutic areas and all phases of research. Its differentiators from other similar sized CRO’s is the very low turnover (less than 5%) over the 20 years in business, which means clients’ projects are supported by only very experienced and engaged staff. Additionally, while much of their experience is in phase I and II North America trials, they have worked in 30+ countries globally. Questions were handled as they came up leading to discussions about Bright’s experience with risk-based monitoring; the new normal of hybrid trials; reducing the frequency of subject visits to the sites; and Bright’s experience with trials that require collecting data from wireless, connected devices, e-source data, etc.
After the presentation we had first time participants share their company names and experience. Josh Lang, Mike O’Gorman and Denise McNerney will be attending BIO in San Diego June 13 – 16. Carlos mentioned the networking event they are having on June 12 in San Diego for people interested in Farmacon Global’s August 25 conference focused on conducting clinical trials in Rare Diseases in Emerging Markets. In posing this question to the group – what are you working on and what do you need help with, Heather Hollick (who taught me this approach for successful networking) mentioned she is starting the Institute for Vibrant Leadership and could use connections to leaders, coaches with whom to collaborate as well as writers and virtual assistants. Subsequently, a few potential connection candidates have been sent to her.
Attendees (bolded names indicate first time attendees):
Alison Macpherson
Heather Hollick
Nicole O’Brien
Josh Lang
Barbara Hilewsky
Shane Krauss
Carlos Martinez
David Holland
Michael O’Gorman
Keisha Felix
Ludmilla Scodeler
Jim Choi
Cesar Serapiao
Chris Matheus
Sally Haller
Denise McNerney
Hannah Lloyd
Todd Neilson
Zulma Varela
Several screenshots follow:
