Rare Disease Clinical Trials Peer Circle

Peer Circle Chairperson Wendy Erler
Wendy has built her patient advocacy career in many rare disease communities and oncology. She is the Vice President of Patient Experience and Global Patient Advocacy at Astra Zeneca, Alexion Rare Disease, where she is responsible for leading the enterprise innovation model to gather and incorporate patient insights throughout the drug development and commercialization processes. She leads the Global Patient Advocacy function and is responsible for the enterprise framework to ensure patient and caregiver voices are incorporated at every step of drug development. Wendy is honored to serve on the board of Global Genes/RARE-X and serves on the advisory council for the n-Lorem Foundation. Previously, Ms. Erler was on the executive leadership team at Wave Life Sciences where she led Patient Advocacy and Commercial and spent 14 years at Biogen Idec in various leadership roles and therapeutic areas. Wendy graduated from Miami University and earned her MBA from St. Joseph’s University.
Peer Circle Chairperson
Why You Should Join:
If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that people crave and need relationships. These relationships help to support decision-making and help you meet daily challenges. To be of real value, these relationships need to be ongoing and between industry professionals who share the same areas of interest, face the same obstacles and have similar roles and responsibilities.
Although industry events have evolved over time, all still fall short when it comes to supporting relationship-building. Xtalks Peer Circles have been developed to fix the following shortcomings:
- Attending conferences, tradeshows and virtual events can be a great way to make connections but connections are not relationships
- Conferences and webinars can deliver great educational content, but the agenda has been set by the event organizer and not by the participants
- No events offer a truly vendor-free environment and little consideration is ever given to matching attendees with other peers facing the same challenges
Join this Peer Circle to get access to the latest information and best practices in clinical trials for orphan drugs in the most efficient way possible. This Peer Circle provides access to exclusive meetings led by leaders in clinical trials without vendors or solutions providers. Because you’re matched with other leaders in your field, you save time on networking by connecting immediately with the people you want to learn from.
Questions? Connect with us here.
What You Will Learn:
Rare diseases affect a small percentage of the population but can make up sizable groups in absolute numbers. This presents a unique set of challenges for clinical trials of orphan drugs. Members of this private peer circle will learn how to overcome the challenges that they face in clinical trials for rare diseases. They will develop strategies to deal with both the scientific design of orphan drug clinical trials and the regulatory requirements.
What You Will Get:
Members of this Peer Circle will gain access to other clinical trials leaders working in rare diseases and form a mini think tank to help solve pressing issues that they are facing in clinical trials for orphan drugs. Members can bring forward their own issues for discussion at meetings, giving them access to best practices for clinical trials of orphan drugs. As an exclusive networking group, members will also have opportunities to develop their careers by building relationships and sharing knowledge.
Get access to:
- Six virtual meetings over a period of 12 months that are lead by the peer circle chairperson
- A private and secure communication channel to connect informally at any time via chat, audio or video with rare disease peer circle members
- The rare disease bulletin featuring developments related to orphan drugs and rare diseases
- Up to 9 Continuing Education (CE) credits, per year, based on your participation in the Peer Circle.
Who Should Attend?:
C-suites, VPs, Directors, Department Heads working within:
- Clinical Trials
- Clinical Research
- Clinical Development
- Operations
- Orphan Drugs
- Rare Diseases
What Topics Will Be Covered?
Peer circles are chairperson and member-led, so your input is key to defining what is covered in each meeting. Challenges facing rare disease clinical trial professionals that are expected to be included in the discussions, include:
- Patient-first trial design
- International trial challenges (travel, insurance, language translation, regulatory
differences) - Taking the trial to the patient – lessons learned from Covid-19
- Natural History and education of HCPs
- Patient Advocacy and Patient Voice
- Involvement of Caregivers and research coordinators
- Setting endpoints
- Ethics and placebos in clinical trials
Tentative Meeting Agenda
- Collaboration Among Pharmaceutical Leaders
- Leveraging Existing Datasets
- Collaboration in Platform Trials
- Data Sharing
- Enhancing Patient Access to Trials:
- Communication and Managing Expectations
- Recruitment Strategies
Next Meeting
- Nov 8 11:00 am - 12:30 pm ET
- Jan 17 11:00 am - 12:30 pm ET
- Mar 13 11:00 am - 12:30 pm ET
- May 15 11:00 am - 12:30 pm ET
- Jul 24 11:00 am - 12:30 pm ET
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