Pharmatech Retools to Focus on Oncology
Research management organization Pharmatech is changing its name and focus to better reflect the company’s presence in the fast-growing oncology research market.
As of January 1, the Denver-based company is doing business as Pharmatech Oncology, a subsidiary of Pharmatech. Company executives hope this name change will distinguish the company’s core services from other contract research and site management organizations (CROs and SMOs).
“Over the years, we have focused ourselves on a variety of areas—diabetes, infectious disease—and so the name Pharmatech, Inc., worked well. Now we feel like we’ve concentrated all our efforts into oncology, so we’ve changed the approach and we’ve renamed and rebranded ourselves as Pharmatech Oncology,” said chairman and chief operating officer Matthew Wiener.
Although the company has provided clinical trial support for other disease specialties in the past, the bulk of its work today is in oncology. Wiener says that’s where the company’s focus will remain in the future.
“I think the value that we’re providing to our clients is that we have a network and a built infrastructure to do oncology research, and we’re really concentrating our efforts on that,” he said.
Pharmatech, which calls itself a research management organization (RMO), provides both SMO and CRO services to drug sponsors using a nationwide research network of community and academic oncologists.
“We’ve prototyped and implemented a new way of enrolling patients in clinical trials—what we call a ‘just-in-time’ approach,” Wiener explained. “Instead of opening up sites and waiting for patients, we go to our network and say, ‘We have a study and these are the patients we’re looking for. Here’s the criteria. If you find a patient, then we’ll do IRB approval and get you open as a site.’”
Oncology research is increasingly complex and personalized, Wiener said, and it is often difficult to enroll enough patients in a particular trial. Pharmatech’s just-in-time patient enrollment methodology, as well as its extensive network of oncologists, helps drug companies overcome the patient recruitment challenges common to an oncology clinical trial, Wiener said. He hopes the new name and brand will help distinguish Pharmatech’s services from other CROs and SMOs.
“The challenge, from our perspective, is we need to get out in front of as many of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are in the oncology space,” Wiener said.
Pharmatech has retooled its management structure as part of the rebranding. Wiener, a PharmD, moved from the role of CEO to chairman and chief operating officer in order to better focus his research expertise on day-today operations. President Anders Malm will assume the responsibilities of CEO, and the company has appointed Rob Bohacs corporate development manager.