Trifecta Clinical, a US-based company specialising in both live and online training of clinical research investigators, has joined the board of directors of the Asia Training Consortium (ATC).
Formed in October 2011 in Shanghai, China, the ATC is a group of pharmaceutical companies and clinical research organisations, plus one regional association, that are pooling their resources to deliver quality training courses for clinical research professionals in the Asia Pacific region.
Trifecta joins Covance and Novartis Healthcare as the three non-permanent members of the ATC serving a three-year term. Other member organisations include Merck & Co, Pfizer, Bayer Healthcare, ClinTec International, Synergy Research Group and the Pan-Asian Clinical Research Association (PACRA).
Trifecta has developed an application platform purpose-built for training and managing clinical research sites. It will leverage this expertise for the ATC by providing training to future members of the clinical research community.
The company is also sponsoring a working group to create an open Extensible Markup Language standard for exchanging clinical-training information: the Clinical Training Interoperability Open Standard (CTIOS).
This standard will enable authorised organisations easily to communicate training status in compliance with privacy regulations and security best practices, Trifecta noted.
Pressing need
There is a pressing need in the Asia Pacific region for additional qualified personnel in medical research, the company said. In China alone, the number of clinical research associates has to double every two years to keep up with demand.
“Trifecta has a track record of effectively delivering clinical training around the world,” commented ATC board chairman John Constantine, who is also executive director and dean of the Merck Polytechnic Institute.
