The Imperial Clinical Research Services business development team recently attended the Drug Information Association (DIA) Global Annual Meeting in San Diego. The DIA Annual Meeting gathers stakeholders across the drug development industry spectrum, from sponsors to contract research organizations, research sites and service providers, such as Imperial. The event included many educational sessions with presentations and panel discussions on a wide variety of important topics that impact the industry. As always, it was great to spend face time with some of our existing clients and to see old industry friends.
Our BD team included Dan McDonald, Dave Woodard, and Imogen Cheese. Also attending was Jennifer Lambert, our category manager for patient engagement.
We participated in the event as an exhibitor, which we have done for several years. From our perspective, the show was as strong as ever and the traffic to the Imperial booth was steady from start to finish. It’s interesting — despite the advances in technology and some of the cutting edge solutions emerging, we are still hearing about the significant challenges that CROs and sponsors are experiencing with day-to-day study conduct support.
Imperial’s focus on bridging critical gaps in study conduct support and complementing the work being done by CROs very much resonated with the individuals who stopped by our booth. While it seems patient recruitment and retention is a perennial need, we also had companies showing strong interest in our other areas of support, including the global distribution of site and study materials, ancillary supplies, and equipment. We heard time and again from anyone involved in clinical operations and clinical supply chain that the increasing globalization of clinical trials is causing them headaches. It was nice to share some of the ways that Imperial can step in and bridge critical gaps in those areas.
On a fun note, to help drive booth traffic and give us an opportunity to engage attendees, we conducted a drawing for a Coach luxury handbag. To enter the contest, attendees let us scan their badge and add their contact information to our database. They could score a bonus entry if they allowed us to take a selfie with them using our special DIA2019 Imperial-branded frame. They were also invited to take one of our branded selfie sticks to continue the fun and capture shots throughout the event.
Below are a few snapshots of the booth and some of our industry colleagues. You can see many of the in-booth selfies on our LinkedIn page.
San Diego is often impacted this time of year by what the locals call June Gloom – cloudy skies and cool temperatures. So forget any visions of the team basking in the sunshine and warm weather. We were too busy anyway, and we enjoyed reconnecting with existing clients and engaging new colleagues we will be working with soon.