Cambridge, Massachusetts (PRWEB) November 05, 2013 -- The Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety (ACRES) announced today that Dr. Johan P. E. Karlberg, a renowned authority on clinical research and site-management, has joined its senior leadership team as Vice-President for Site-Development and Support. In this capacity, Dr. Karlberg will bring the perspective of the sites and investigators to ACRES as it builds a shared systems-infrastructure to support a global network of high-performing clinical research sites of excellence.
Born and educated in Sweden, Karlberg has worked in academia and clinical research for 35 years, including experience with the US, UK, Finland, Ireland, Pakistan, Sweden and Hong Kong. For over a decade, he was the Director/Professor of the Clinical Trials Centre at the University of Hong Kong, contracting 640 industry-sponsored global clinical trials during that time.
Karlberg led the development by an international working group of a complete library of standard operating policies and procedures for clinical trial sites and co-authored a guide for ethics committees and IRBs reviewing clinical research studies. Dr. Karlberg is also the creator and managing director of Clinical Trials Magnifier Weekly, the industry’s most authoritative source of current information regarding the status of clinical trials worldwide.
Karlberg now brings his global experience and leadership to ACRES. In his new position, Karlberg plans to establish a wide-ranging portfolio of support services and information for clinical investigators and sites that "will enable investigators to conduct industry-sponsored clinical trials to the highest standards and at the same time understand that their knowledge and contributions are essential." Karlberg will work with the ACRES Site Accreditation Standards Initiative steering committee to ensure that global site-accreditation standards currently under development will provide value to sites and serve the needs of all stakeholders who will use the ACRES Global Network.
With Karlberg’s leadership, a Site-Support Advisory Group consisting of experienced international clinical trial professionals will identify important study-site support services and products that will be developed over the next twelve months. These products and services will be made available to ACRES Global Network affiliated-sites at no or minimal cost in support of ACRES mission to promote safety, quality and efficiency in clinical research worldwide.
Karlberg noted, "The industry must identify at least 60,000 new study sites annually for their clinical development programs with the aim to identify more efficient and safer medicine. However, less than 1% of all medical doctors are ever involved in such trials. We know that many more doctors wish to be involved in sponsored trials, but there is a big gap between the industry and potential investigators meaning that the industry currently has problems in reaching out. One of our primary objectives is to bridge this gap." To this end, ACRES recently released the first component of its global technology platform, a site-network interface. As a result, preliminary registration of sites, which is free of charge, is now underway.
Greg Koski, ACRES’ President and CEO noted, "Dr. Karlberg is truly one of the world’s leaders when it comes to understanding what it takes for a clinical research site to perform at the highest level, and importantly, he also understands that to do so, sites must be provided with tools and services that meet their critical needs. He brings to ACRES his depth of experience and insight, and his relationships with other leaders in clinical research from every corner of the enterprise--sponsors, regulatory agencies, CROs, sites, IRBs and patient organizations all over the world. He is hard working and results driven, with a proven track record of delivering innovative tools to the research community. We are delighted to have Johan as a member of the ACRES team."
ACRES is non-profit, non-industry organization operating in the public interest, applying systems-thinking to build a shared global clinical research infrastructure through a multi-stakeholder collaborative approach. ACRES seeks to align good ethics with good scientific and business practices to enhance the safety, quality, effectiveness and efficiency of the clinical research process for the benefit of people everywhere.
Dr. Mary F. Tobin, Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety (ACRES), http://www.acresglobal.net, +1 410-987-5509, [email protected]
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