Posted on Tue, Aug 31, 2010 @ 04:20 PM
Are you or your healthcare PR firm prepared to handle clinical trial-related crises? Please review my 10-point primer published in the latest issue of Communique magazine to learn more.
For a PDF of the article, click here.
Posted on Wed, Jul 14, 2010 @ 04:27 PM
As personalized medicine continues to become more of a reality, 
pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical technology companies are finding ways to create new partnerships focused on building the future of medicine.
BioNJ's Diagnostics Committee, of which JFK Communications is a member, is hosting a free webinar keynoted by G. Steven Burrill, Chief Executive Officer, Burrill & Company.
This event is the first in a series of initiatives from BioNJ for global life sciences companies. Learn more about it, and register, by clicking here: New Jersey Gets Personalized – A series of initiatives from BioNJ to advance the Diagnostics industry and foster partnerships with biopharma companies in the State of New Jersey. How New Technologies are Changing Opportunities in the Diagnostics Industry, Creating Value and Encouraging Partnerships.
--David Avitabile
Posted on Wed, May 26, 2010 @ 11:05 AM
Personalized medicine has been a hot topic in life sciences for a while now. With
the clearly changing landscape in healthcare, and increased pressure on drug developers to maximize their returns and minimize costs, personalized medicine is more important now than ever before, and it is becoming a reality.
It is estimated that the majority of cancer drugs fail to deliver the outcomes for which they are prescribed. The promise that personalized medicine offers to patients is the potential to identify which individuals will respond to a particular drug. Think about the cost savings implications if the practice of personalized medicine can become standard operating procedure across all therapeutic areas.
There are also enormous potential benefits to full implementation of personalized medicine in clinical research and drug development. Consider the impact on clinical trial design, cost and success vs. failure rates for clinical research programs of drugs in development if the trial sponsors can screen and identify those patients most likely to respond to a potential new therapeutic at enrollment, and which patients should be excluded from the trial.
What is also very intriguing is to consider how many drugs that have "failed" using traditional clinical research models that could find new life in the era of personalized medicine. Drugs that showed promise but ultimately failed due to the inherent shortcomings of current clinical development protocols could be resurrected and ultimatley brought to market if found to be effective in specific patient populations identified using personalized medicine. Unmet needs in under served patient populations could be addressed, and investments in new therapeutic options could be justified as money well spent, rather than written off.
This is an area of great interest to me. I recently published an article in the Life Sciences Supplement to NJBIZ that explored some of these issues, and I look forward to what the future has in store.
Click here to download a copy of my article, entitled "Personalized medicine offers opportunity" published in the 2010 Life Sciences Supplement to NJBIZ.
--David Avitabile