DrugDev's Dr. Hugo Stephenson Establishes The DrugDev Innovation Lab With Partnerships With Two Cutting-Edge Technology Firms

DrugDev, a leading provider of technology driven solutions that help investigators, sponsors and CROs do more trials together, announced recently the establishment of the DrugDev Innovation Lab, a technology incubator designed to accelerate emerging solutions in clinical trial automation. Led by DrugDev Executive Chairman Hugo Stephenson, MD, the DrugDev Innovation Lab will provide the expert guidance, capital resources and ecosystem necessary for smaller companies to scale their novel products into industry gold standard solutions.

Inaugural members of the DrugDev Innovation Lab via strategic partnership are leading electronic consent platform SecureConsent (formerly Consent Solutions, a division of Enforme Interactive, Inc.), and consumer-centric product development company Applied Informatics which has considerable expertise in semantic data processing and knowledge extraction from clinical trial protocols and electronic health records.

“As evidenced by our acquisitions of CFS Clinical and TrialNetworks, DrugDev is passionate about providing access to disruptive technologies that change the game of how clinical research is conducted,” said Stephenson. “The Innovation Lab – wholly owned and operated by DrugDev – is exciting because it will enable companies to improve their solutions and achieve their vision faster than would be possible alone. Keeping these solutions within an incubator environment allows them to adapt and evolve to meet rapidly changing market needs, while enabling customers to take advantage of these innovations with the confidence of DrugDev’s significant backing and support.”

Led by co-founders CEO Eric Delente and Executive Vice President of Clinical Products and Services Susan Brink, DrPH, SecureConsent (www.consentsolutions.com) is a market-leading platform for capturing and managing electronic informed consent on multiple devices. Global pharmaceutical companies and professional societies rely on SecureConsent to achieve enrollment goals faster with fully-informed participants and real-time tracking and data management. The company was founded in 2005 with a multi-disciplinary background including public health and education, and has since grown into a pioneer in the field of electronic consenting.

About Applied Informatics
Applied Informatics is a leader in natural language processing, data mining and processing of electronic health records (EHRs). The company’s online platform, TrialX, includes novel semantic processing and knowledge extraction capabilities that help across the clinical trial recruitment continuum. Founders Dr. Chintan Patel and Dr. Sharib Khan are past winners of the Best Cancer Consumer Application (National Cancer Institute), Best Population Health Application Award (Office of the National Coordinator of Health) and Personal Health Record Innovation Challenge (Indivo/Smart). For more information, visit www.appliedinformaticsinc.com.

DrugDev CEO Ibraheem Mahmood said, “In Hugo Stephenson, DrugDev has a proven innovator in clinical trials. Hugo was a pioneer in Phase 4 clinical trials, redefined patient populations on Mediguard, and drove the development of the Project Coordination Center, the first-ever remote site management group at Quintiles. With his guidance, DrugDev’s capital and ultra-fast software prototyping resources, the DrugDev Innovation Lab will have the freedom to create tools and acquire technology needed to change the game of clinical research.”

About Applied Informatics
Applied Informatics is a design-led software development company specializing in the development of semantic data applications in the healthcare domain. Founded in 2008 by two graduates of Columbia University, Applied Informatics has won several awards for innovation and design. Its clinical trials patient recruitment platform TrialX is used by thousands of patients every month and powers clinical trials searches at top academic medical centers around the country. For more information, visit www.appliedinformaticsinc.com.

About SecureConsent
SecureConsent is an internet-based multimedia education and tracking system that transforms the informed consent process into an easy-to-use, patient-centered workflow. It helps patients make educated decisions while facilitating compliance, transparency and efficiency. Detailed, real-time tracking and sophisticated analytics help support risk-based monitoring of the consent process from anywhere. Highly granular audit trails, and certainty that the right version of the document is presented in the right language, and signed with the correct date, help reduce compliance failures. Led by experts in clinical trials, public health and online education, the product has evolved over a 10-year period and has produced a pioneering, multi-disciplined team in the field of electronic informed consent. The enterprise has established deep expertise in the regulatory considerations around electronic consent in the US, and more recently in the EU and Asia Pacific as new global trials begin to adopt the system. For more information, visit www.consentsolutions.com.

About DrugDev
DrugDev’s mission is to simplify life at the clinical trial site through technology. In this way DrugDev enables sponsors, CROs and investigators to do more trials together. Featuring the largest global network of active investigators, the industry’s leading grant payment and site contracting system in CFS Clinical (www.cfsclinical.com), and the award-winning TrialNetworks (www.trialnetworks.com) platform of clinical operations apps, DrugDev creates and drives standards which promote collaboration, improve quality, shorten timelines and reduce cost. In addition, DrugDev provides Hosted Data Solutions for clinical trials including hosting the Investigator Databank (www.investigatordatabank.org) for Novartis, Janssen, Merck, Lilly and Pfizer. For more information, visit www.drugdev.org.