The Clinical Business Expo hosted its annual meeting this past month (Sept 19th– 21st) at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston. The expo was designed to host six individual conferences: Central Labs, Bio Repositories, Project Management, e Clinical Integration, Business of Biosimilars, and Cell Therapy Commercialization. The primary focus was on delivering the latest technical, operational and scientific approaches for clinical development. Since all six events were located in the same exhibition hall, participants were able to choose and learn from a wide range of topics.

The meeting was attended by more than 50 exhibitors, 200 speakers, and 600 attendees, representing several major companies in the biopharmaceutical industry, as well as contract and service organizations related to the business aspects of clinical research. Among prominent companies both presenting and attending were Genzyme, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Pfizer, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, and Merck. Topics ranged from the current cryogenic methods, to best practices in the development of Electronic Data Capture systems and the latest on biosimilars. The event brought together many experts in the clinical business world, offering a wide range of expertise.

The 15th Annual e Clinical Integration Summit event, included as part of t the expo, focused on recent Electronic Data Capture (EDC) technologies presenting both the challenges and solutions. Our company president, Leo Galperin, participated in this year’s meeting where he presented on the role of language in the global adoption of EDC (see the highlights of our presentation included in this issue of our newsletter).

In addition to presenting, Leo attended several stimulating discussions including a presentation given by Boehringer Ingelheim entitled “Integration, Not Reconciliation: Boehringer Ingelheim's Plan to Integrate SAE collection with EDC” presented by Susana Domingos, (Associate Director in Drug Surveillance and Information) and Tricia Gregory (Sr. AD Global BDM). During the various networking sessions offered throughout the expo, Leo was able to connect with several of our current clients, as well as engage in productive discussions regarding future working relationships with prospective clients. The expo provided a great forum for leading industry specialists to meet, discuss the latest issues, provide solutions, and lay the groundwork for future collaborations.