Recipients have been selected for the 2012 SAFE-BioPharma Digi Award, recognizing innovative uses of the global SAFE-BioPharma digital identity and digital signature standard and the institutions and individuals contributing to broader understanding of its benefits. Recipients included: Astellas, Bristol-Myers Squibb and representatives of two U.S. government entities.

“The selected companies and individuals have helped advance the use and understanding of SAFE-BioPharma as a way to ensure trust in online identities and to apply legally-binding digital signatures to electronic documents,” said Mollie Shields-Uehling, president and CEO, SAFE-BioPharma Association. The board of directors of the non-profit consortium made the selections from nominations submitted from the biopharmaceutical, healthcare and information security sectors.

Astellas Pharma was selected for a SAFE-BioPharma virtual clinical study pilot project in Japan involving the Japan Medical Association Center for Clinical Trials and three general hospitals under Ibaraki Hospital Center of Hitachi. In the pilot, clinical trial contracts and IRB review reports were signed digitally by Astellas as a virtual sponsor and by medical professionals at the hospitals.

Steven Friedman, National Cancer Institute, and Cindy Cullen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, were selected for their participation in a pioneering use of interoperable digital identities by a small group of government and industry cancer researchers that demonstrates how clinical trial initiation can be accelerated while reducing costs.

Peter Alterman, Assistant CIO for EAuthentication, National Institutes of Health, was selected for playing a critical role (as chairman of the Federal PKI Policy Authority) in creating foundational tools for developing and promulgating use of interoperable digital identities by U.S. government employees and for ushering in the era of eSubmissions. The judges also cited Dr. Alterman’s leadership in laying the groundwork for conducting future paperless clinical trials

This is the first of what will become an annual nomination and selection process.