Meet New Global Impact Partner: Accelerated Enrollment Solutions

Victor Lopes, VP of Medical Operations and Interim Head of Global Site Network at Accelerated Enrollment Solutions (AES) provides a glimpse into AES' mission and values, emphasizing their commitment to improving clinical trials globally. Hear about the vital work of AES' site enrollment optimization teams and valuable advice on fostering mutually beneficial collaborations. 

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Jimmy Bechtel 0:00

Welcome and thank you for joining the Society for Clinical Research Sites for SCRS Talks. I'm Jimmy Bechtel, the Vice President of Site Engagement with SCRS. SCRS Talks is a program that allows our partners and those that we work closely with to take a few minutes to address issues of industry concern, share exciting achievements, And to learn more about our growing community today. We have Victor Lopez, the vice president and head of accelerated enrollment solutions operations with AES. Victor is here to talk to us about AES as a recent joining of the global impact partnership, the GIP program. They're very excited to have AES join this program. But with that, I'd like to turn it over to you, Victor, to introduce yourself briefly.

Victor Lopes 0:47

Thanks very much, Jimmy. We're really excited to join the program as well. And good day to everybody. Yes, I'm, I'm Victor Lopes. I'm head of the AES site network, which is which is a directly owned site network of just under 60 clinical research sites across the globe. Around half of them in the US and then in EMEA, including the United Kingdom, which is where I'm based in sunny Scotland, actually, that's where I, inhabit and sites also in Germany Central Eastern Europe, including Poland Bulgaria Hungary and the Czech Republic, and also a small number of sites in South Africa. We then partner with around another 60 sites globally as well including in the Ukraine and South America and India. So it gives us a, a, a global reach of around 120 sites to conduct our studies. My background is that of a practicing physician. I came through the, I guess an academic route, you might say. I was a professor in the university in the medical school, in the University of Edinburgh. For around 15 years and so it was PI on on many academic studies. And I, I, by background, I was a, I was an oncologist. I've always been in the commercial business at that same time as well. I actually sort of co founded and owned my own very small niche CRO In fact, co founded that exactly 20 years ago in 2003. And so was running that small operation at the same time as as my clinical background and my academic background. And so have a pretty good understanding of, of what it's like to be at a research site. But then I've also worked in a number of other commercial settings as well, including sort of radiology commercial ventures, medical device ventures and before I came to this role in PPD well, PPD AES, actually then I was working in a in a virus challenge center. So I was head of. Operations in a virus challenge center based in London which is a really interesting environment because the, that virus challenge model now gaining a lot of popularity. You know, the power of that data being, being really exceptional in reducing, you know, numbers of patients required in, in studies, et cetera. So, so I have quite a sort of diverse background of... You know, practicing in medicine, in academic environment running a number of commercial ventures and now since January 2023, heading up the AES organization and so really proud to be doing that now on behalf of PPD and Thermo Fisher. So that's a little bit about me and AES.

Jimmy Bechtel 3:36

Great. Thanks, Victor. Again, great to have you and learn more about your background and learn a little bit more about AES and what AES is doing as part of the PPD and Thermo Fisher family. So again, welcome to the Global Impact Partner Program. So can you maybe start off by telling our listeners about your organization and how you all conceive this partnership really aligning with your mission and values?

Victor Lopes 4:02

Yeah, sure. I should maybe just explain a little bit more about about what AES is doing actually. So you know, we are the site network organization of owned by PPD, which is then a business unit of AES is Is really focused on later phase study. So phase two and phase three work predominantly, of course, there are other business units focused on you know, first in human and early phase work. And of course there's another separate. Business unit in in post marketing as well within the organization. So, so we're the sort of the late phase site network. Thermo Fisher's mission is that of enabling our customers to make the world you know, a healthier, cleaner safer place. And AES as a, as a business of PPD, part of Thermo Fisher is a leading provider of these patient recruitment and clinical trial solutions for the life sciences industry. Patients are, are really at the center of. Everything that we do and we're committed to optimizing each step in the patient journey and delivering what we consider to be best in class site performance to bring our customers greater certainty to clinical trial delivery as a business with a robust site network. We are definitely committed to, you know, actively listening to and supporting the site community. We believe that serving as a, as a global impact partner gives us an excellent opportunity to contribute and enhance the relationships among sites, patients. and clinical research organizations. Our commitment to patient centered recruitment and clinical trial services and particularly acceleration aligns with the SCRS mission of advocating for, for the needs of clinical research sites and improving clinical research for all stakeholders. And we look forward to a really productive collaboration with SCRS.

Jimmy Bechtel 5:58

That's great, Victor. It's really great to hear. It's such a aligning message and one that is truly driven, like you said, by sites and patients towards better outcomes for those patients. So thank you for sharing those insights. I want to talk about something specific within AES that makes you maybe a little bit unique from the other groups that are out there, and that's the site enrollment optimization teams. So can you talk a little bit about those and maybe what kind of impact that they have had on the enrollment rates as you've seen?

Victor Lopes 6:30

Yeah, sure. As you say Jimmy, our business is unique in that we are able to optimize for specific indications or specific you know, study types and designs to impact enrollment rates for, you know, for the, for the, for the better. Our site enrollment optimization teams have outreach coordinators for example, that, that. Liase directly with communities and community groups. It might be a, it might be a church group. It might be a community society. It might be like a health organization or a health charity that we might liaise with and reach out to. So that that's the first group that we have is the sort of outreach coordinators in our sites. We have a second group of individuals in our sites that are more focused on creating physician referrals. So, you know, create first of all, creating networks of physicians that that are really wanting to work with with our sites and who then might be interested in referring their patients to us. And with that particular issue of, physician referrals. I think we stand out here because you know, our sites are very much focused on conducting the research and they're in specializing in, in, in doing just that. So, when patients enroll with us, we provide care. you know, within the context of the study, of course. Key for the referring practitioner and I think this is particularly pertinent probably in the US and and maybe, you know, less of a concern in, in countries with highly developed sort of state healthcare systems, such as Germany or the UK, for example. But, you know, it's important for those referring practitioners to know that we are not in the business of then taking their patients away from them. We're not in that. We're not wanting to lure them away for their general health care. We are simply interested in working collaboratively with these physicians to provide the care that's necessary within the context of the study. And, you know, when the study is finished, and during the study, these patients and subjects continue to be managed by their, you know, referring primary care physician or even the hospitalist that that might be involved. So that's that's really key. Is that, it's a collaborative relationship with physicians that we're trying to create. So those are sort of two local site initiatives around recruitment. And then additionally as a business of, of, of PPD, we have a centralized patient referral group that does sort of more broad reaching campaigns. Maybe using, powerful social media platforms broadcast platforms or even print media to access certain population groups and so on. And, with with this sort of broad approach and these mix of, potential ways forward to recruit. You know, we see this has been a really powerful solution. Sponsors can buy one or multiple of these and can mix them so that they, optimize the outcome for, as I said, for a particular indication or for a particular study type. And, we've got In a pretty good history now and an understanding of of what works in which setting. So that's the sort of broad answer is really that we have multiple approaches and, you know, they need to be blended in each circumstance to give the best outcome.

Jimmy Bechtel 9:56

That's great, Victor. Really, really interesting because it is a different approach. It's not your standard run of the mill approach to enrollment and something I think maybe some other organizations out there could could lean into and possibly explore as something that would work for them. I like the spirit of collaboration that is behind that because you have taken the approach that you have to do things together that you have to enhance, kind of raise all boats in that aspect of enrollment. And it isn't kind of a, a hostile takeover or a swoop in and manage it type of perspective that I know we've seen in the past from other organizations. So it's really great to hear your specific perspective and approach is again, collaborative in the nature of solving some of our enrollment challenges that we see on our clinical trials. So with AES being part of PPD, as you had mentioned, it. It goes to probably say that you have a relatively unique perspective of research site community collaboration. So maybe share a little bit of advice that you have for sites and sponsors and CROs who are looking to form more mutually beneficial partnerships. What things can they do to maybe enable a stronger relationships that again, your unique perspective might bring?

Victor Lopes 11:15

Sure. Thanks, Jimmy, for the question. You know, as part of a larger organization, we do have a unique perspective and advantage of understanding the kind of the broad aspects of clinical trial delivery. And that includes, things like, for example, understanding the medical strategy that goes into creating either a recruitment pathway or a care pathway into a study and it's a bit of a, I guess, a personal sort of crusade there to, to, to think about how we look after our patients as part of a pathway of care. I think that, you know, in many instances now in modern healthcare, you'll hear. Talk of pathways, and I think that is equally potentially applicable in clinical research, where we have people in a pathway. And as we've already sort of highlighted, that pathway is, you know, deeply collaborative and will only succeed if it is such. So. There are many opportunities for, for mutually beneficial partnerships and we are always seeking to improve our value proposition for customers for sure while providing, you know, top notch care for our patients. And I think that the advice that I would offer if, if it's appropriate for me to be offering any advice to, to anybody really, but, but it is to seek early engagement. With sponsors and really truly understand what it is that they're looking to succeed with and, offer a solution. That is differentiated in the marketplace, and that's certainly what AES is aiming to do and one that offers, incredibly good value because it's never been more evident than right now that the sponsors are looking for that value dividend. And I think it's about being really focused on what the customer is looking for in order to be able to deliver successfully. That's that would be my advice.

Jimmy Bechtel 13:11

That's excellent advice. I think Victor. It's really great to hear the continued emphasis on. One of the things that I guess is the basis of the work that AES does, and that's that attitude, that spirit of collaboration and what sounds like everything that you do, every aspect and, and a component of what makes your organization unique is that collaborative attitude and that of course trickles down to our patients who are then better served as a result of it.

Victor Lopes 13:40

Very much so that that's certainly the objective. And, you know, as I said, I think in my opening, as to the opening question, the patients are at the center of. Of everything that we do, and by doing that, we believe that's our route to the customer. Because the patients ultimately are, are deriving the data for the trial, and that, at the end of the day, the product is the data that we, that we provide back to the sponsors, but so the patient is the route back to the sponsor, as well as, you know, just needing to do the right thing for, for them as patients as well.

Jimmy Bechtel 14:13

Excellent. Excellent. It's great to hear. Thank you for for sharing that sentiment as well, Victor. Beginning to close here. We'll move on to our last question here. What are some of the goals or initiatives that AES is working on? You know, maybe talking a little bit about the future here that you're most excited about? What's what's coming next that excites you?

Victor Lopes 14:34

Yeah, something that we're just working through actually right now is really Making sure that every single site functions to its best possible potential, empowering each and every site to be successful. Whilst they're part of a larger organization, they are very much empowered to be successful as an individual sort of little mini satellite, if you like. And so that's something that, that since. You know, becoming head of the network. We've put a lot of emphasis on that, and we do believe that that's actually paying dividends and seeing, you know, providing successful outcomes not only for the sites, but for the patients as well. But more broadly, you know, we're also exploring ways to collaborate with other areas of the business, actually. That's what's really exciting is right now, you know, being part of not just PPD, but Thermo Fisher, you know, it won't have escaped you. They're operating in 55 countries. And they have a really broad science portfolio and,, reaching out into that business. Now is a really exciting sort of set of conversations we're having. We've been able to potentially provide services and and support for other areas of the broader Thermo Fisher business. And, and finally, the other sort of really exciting prospect right now is to diversify our offering you know, to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. I think I've mentioned this already, but, but, clearly, we're a, we're a bricks and mortar site network, but within a sort of broader division, you know, we have access to. Digital and decentralized solutions to home trial services,, potentially mobile facilities, et cetera. And we want to make sure that that what we're offering is, a combination of all of that. That our sponsors are looking for to provide the best possible clinical trial solution. And it's that diversification of the offering that I think right now is really exciting and that we're looking, to promote going forward.

Jimmy Bechtel 16:33

Excellent Victor. I am excited to see what that future brings for AES and and how your involvement with SCRS. I think bringing that full circle and that concept of collaboration and partnership with SCRS and our sites and in turn, patients will help you enhance some of that work that you're doing so that we can all continue to bring medicines to patients faster. So again, thank you for sharing a little bit about what's next and thank you for being here with us today. Thank you for sharing your insights. And of course, again, sincerest thank you on behalf of all the sites that are part of S C R S for joining the S C R S G I P program.

Victor Lopes 17:08

Actually, we're honored to be part of it. And I look forward to, to meeting up in person you know, with, with colleagues and possibly with yourselves you know, at a meeting, maybe in Lisbon coming up. So thank you, Jimmy.

Jimmy Bechtel 17:21

You're very welcome. Well for everyone listening, make sure that you register for some of our upcoming summits being held throughout the year by visiting the summit page on our website myscrs. org. While you're on our website, be sure to also consider checking out the other SCRS publications and resources created for the community in the publications section of that same website. We appreciate your participation and listening in today's program and look forward to having you join us for more great content in the future. Thanks again for listening.