John Hubbard, Ph.D., will retire after spending three years as Bioclinica’s CEO, and the company has picked its current imaging and eHealth president, David Herron, to succeed him first thing next year.
Hubbard officially joined Bioclinica in 2015 after serving as Pfizer’s worldwide head of development. He took over from Mark Weinstein, who oversaw the merger with CCBR-Synarc in 2014. Herron also spent four years at CCBR-Synarc and was the company’s COO when he left for a position at healthcare-focused private equity firm DW Healthcare Partners.
With that C-level leadership experience that requires oversight of the entire company, Herron exuded confidence about his new job as Bioclinica’s CEO. Though Herron rejoined Bioclinica in 2013 to lead its medical imaging division and later added eHealth to his responsibilities, as the new CEO-to-be, he didn’t play favorite.
“My plan as Bioclinica CEO is to lead the company to achieve its full potential by leveraging our unique combination of scientific, medical, and regulatory expertise with superior technology across all of our lines of business from medical imaging and eHealth Solutions, RTSM and financial lifecycle solutions, to patient recruitment and research network,” he told FierceCRO in an emailed interview.
But his success in the medical imaging sector is hard to ignore. During his tenure, he integrated imaging services from Bioclinica, Corelab Partners—which was merged into BioClinica in 2013—and Synarc into one comprehensive operation, growing the business into what Bioclinica touted as the world’s largest medical imaging service provider for clinical trials.
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On the back of Herron’s appointment, Bioclinica rolled out its clinical adjudication service, which Herron said employs technology that comes via the company’s recent acquisition of research imaging management expert MDDX.
Bioclinica has already applied MDDX’s cloud-based image transport and management module into its new “SMART” platform, while MDDX’s clinical adjudication module is now the backbone of the new service. Both coming from MDDX, the SMART and clinical adjudication modules can share data with each other, allowing access of image data or image status for clinical adjudication.
For that service, Bioclinica utilizes a vast global network of medical professionals who specialize in different endpoint areas to lead independent review of clinical events. And, sponsors may also use their own recommended adjudicators on Bioclinica’s electronic platform.
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“Unlike other electronic systems, our clinical adjudication software can model any adjudication pathway without additional programing,” Bioclinica’s COO of medical imaging and eHealth told FierceCRO. “This allows for the ultimate flexibility while providing assurance to those conducting clinical trials that the pathway is in alignment with the study protocol, regulatory guidance and company SOPs.”
The company said the platform increases efficiency in that it has an easy-to-use interface, comprehensive and accurate source data, automated reporting for adjudication team’s timely review of events, as well as transparency in workflow status and immediate, real-time online access to adjudication reports for those running trials.
“With the launch of Bioclinica Clinical Adjudication, our imaging clients are able to realize added value in their technologies by using their SMART application to submit all of their electronic documents for inclusion in the clinical event dossier,” Herron said.
Bioclinica’s offerings now encompass medical imaging, cardiac safety, clinical adjudication, randomization and trial supply management and optimization, electronic and eSource data capture, site payments, pharmacovigilance, trial management and risk-based monitoring solutions.