On Tuesday 20th February 2018, we held the 2nd Global Clinical Trial Advanced and Planning Symposium was held at Osaka. The theme of the symposium was “Reaching the Ultimate End of Globalization of Clinical Research by ADACEMIA”

At the reception

This symposium was jointly organized by Osaka University Hospital and National Cancer Center Hospital, and sponsored by Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) and as a part of Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development, Translational Research Program; Strategic Promotion for Practical Application of Innovation Medical Technology (Global Clinical Trial Development). Aiming to provide an opportunity to share information among medical experts around the world. We invited experts related to the global clinical trials from Asia and Europe. It was our 2nd symposium since we, Global Clinical Research Support Office, was launched in 2016 autumn.
Because we decided to hold the event in Osaka, we were concerned whether huge hall would be filled with audience. However, eventually more than 160 participants attended this time.

At the beginning, we had greeting speeches from Dr. Shizaburo NOGUCHI, Osaka University Hospital Director and Dr. Takao SARUTA, Director for this program. In the part 1, Dr. MARUYAMA from AMED, Mr.KISHIMOTO from Ministry of Economy and Dr. FUJIWARA from Saitama Medical University addressed speeches from each position about the expectations and the current situation on “Globalization of Clinical Research in Japan”.

It is one of the highlight of the 2nd session, “How Data Standardization and Artificial Intelligence will Revolutionize the World ~Government, Industry and Academic Perspective~” Prof. MIYAKE from Osaka University, Dr. NISHIOKA Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), Mr. HIRAKAWA from Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim Co.,LTD and lastly Mr.KAWAMOTO from Osaka Gas Co., LTD talked about the unique features of specific examples not only in drug development but also the utilization of AI in other preceding.
Inspiring a wide range of suggestive stories to innovative AI and how to utilize real world data for drug development and accompanying methods, all of them captured participants’ curiosity and interests.

2^nd session“How Data Standardization and Artificial Intelligence will Revolutionize the World ~Government, Industry and Academic Perspective~”

Now, as domestic representative facilities, Dr. NAKATANI from Osaka University Hospital, Dr. IIYAMA from National Center for Global Health and Medicine, and then subsequently Dr. HATA from National Cancer Hospital reported “Activities on Global Clinical Research in Japan “.
As the representative speaker from Asia and Europe, Dr. YOO ASAME Medical Center (Korea); Dr. KITIYAKARA, Mahidol University (Tailand), Dr.MENG; Academia Sinica (Taiwan) introduced the current status and future expectations of each institution. In the last panel discussion, “Current status and perspectives on Global (Multi Regional) Clinical Trials, we invited Dr. Odile LEROY from European Vaccine Initiative (EVI), who has spent most of her carrier in vaccine development, gave a talk regarding vaccine development in low income countries. In her lecture, she introduced the difficulties and various hurdles on vaccine development.

Lastly, in the panel discussion, there were many comments from the guest speakers including overseas lecturers on the two major themes “Rare disease/Intractable diseases” in addition to those “Global health” including Africa and Asia infectious diseases. After receiving those comments, 2nd symposium was concluded with the challenges under global collaboration and was reaffirmed as the core significance and role of global clinical research by ACADEMIA.

According to the survey by questionnaire for the symposium, we were fortunate to be thankful that 86% of participants were satisfied and would like to participate in the next one. In response to that result, we were able to have a meaningful information exchanging opportunity for everyone and closed with a great success.

Group photo at the end of the symposium

We are looking forward to seeing you again next year since we will try to plan the valuable program to further progress global clinical research.
Then we will be expecting to welcome more participants as we are planning to hold the 3rd symposium next year in February, in Osaka as well.