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European Pharmaceutical Contractor
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| Andrew Blackwell of Cambridge Cognition talks to EPC about the value of highly-specialised services and cognitive assessment products based on cutting-edge science
Let’s start with a brief description of your company, and the vision behind it.
Our mission is to assist people to live healthier lives through innovative applications of cognitive science. We believe that discovery of the optimum treatments for cognitive disorders will be enabled by the best possible understanding of the biological substrates of cognitive impairment. The CANTAB® (Cambridge Neuropyschological Test Automated Battery) suite of neuropsychological tests was developed at the University of Cambridge in the laboratories of Professors Trevor Robbins and Barbara Sahakian. Validated through over 20 years of research, the system has been used in over 550 peer-reviewed journal papers and is currently in use in over 600 research institutions in more than 50 countries. Studies including lesion, neuroimaging, clinical and psychopharmacological, have enabled a unique understanding of test sensitivities. We are able to use this wealth of research data to inform the design of our research partners’ studies. Administered on touch-screen computers, the CANTAB tests are marketed to medical and academic researchers and to the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. The tests are predominantly language-independent and therefore well-suited to translational and multinational research programmes. |
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Andrew Blackwell is Scientific Director at Cambridge Cognition Ltd, a company that specialises in computerised cognitive testing, and an Honorary Visiting Research Associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge (UK) School of Clinical Medicine. He has more than 10 years’ clinical research experience. Following an MA and a PhD in Psychology from the University of St Andrews, Andrew undertook post-doctoral training in cognitive neuropsychology and psychopharmacology at the University of Cambridge, working closely on CANTAB with Professors Trevor Robbins and Barbara Sahakian. He has worked with several clinical groups, including Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, stroke, OCD, ADHD and depression. |
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4th Annual Patient Recruitment and Retention in Clinical Trials
13-15 October 2008, Amsterdam
Patient recruitment
is now consuming thirty percent of clinical trial time - more time than any
other clinical trial activity - and almost half of all trial delays result from
patient recruitment problems.
As the
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enrollment grow more numerous and complex, pharmaceutical companies are
striving to discover new strategies to facilitate enrollment in clinical
trials.
With
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Improving the patient recruitment process is imperative to avoid wasted
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MipTec, October 14 – 16, 2008, Switzerland
MipTec about to take off by joining forces between Life Sciences Week, ALL-SystemsX.ch-Day, & Jobvector.com
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