Regeneron Investigator Meeting

Last Thursday I left to Atlanta to catch a flight to Las Vegas for an investigator meeting sponsored by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. On the way to the airport, I stopped by the nearest Toyota dealership for Kelly's 10,000 mile maintenance checkup. An oil and filter change, tire rotation and fluids check later, I was on my way to the airport's park-and-ride.

The flight to LV was more or less uneventful, which is always a good thing. The only exception was going through a thunderstorm in the first 15 minutes of the flight, which provided some uneasy moments for me (turbulence) but at least the storm provided good amounts of rain in Blue Ridge. Turbulence on flights always makes me worried.

I arrived at the airport in LV (for the first time) and was surprised to find slot machines in the airport! (I don't know why I was surprised). A shuttle service awaited us - several conference attendees. We stayed at the Loews Lake Las Vegas Resort which was about 24 miles or so away from "the strip" or the glitz of Vegas. The resort, situated in the desert in a sort of valley, surrounded by generous hills, the road or driveway leading to the entrance lined with palm trees, was really quite nice and impressive. We arrived around sunset and so you know I had to take some photos.

The meeting was over Thursday and Friday. Thursday's agenda was registration and dinner (which was fantastic BTW). Friday was the full day, starting at 7am for breakfast, concluding at 5:30pm or so. We were introduced to the study protocol, the investigational drug, the regulatory material, shipping of materials for lab testing, all the ins and outs of conducting this clinical trial. We received electronic data capture (EDC) training for this study also.

At 5pm, I get a text message from Ray (my boss) saying we have a ride waiting out front. -- I guess we were skipping the remainder of the meeting (which was only the wrap-up session and dinner left). Lee (Ray's wife) had a night on the town planned for us which included: (1) dinner at the ultra trendy nightclub and restaurant called Tao (located at the Venetian hotel) -- asian bistro cuisine, (2) a stroll through some of the hotels and shops at the strip, (3) gelato at the Venetian for dessert .. and best of all (4) tickets to the show La Reve, which was showing at the swanky (new) hotel, the Wynn.

I have to thank the Tidmans, especially Lee, for organizing this evening and for including me. They planned to stay an extra day/night and I am sure their Saturday would have included all of this though not necessarily the exact itinerary. But knowing I was leaving very early on Saturday, the Tidmans decided to quickly come up with a night on the town for my first Vegas experience. Thank you! There's nothing like experiencing Vegas the Tidman way: personal drivers to and from hotel (no waiting for taxis), near front row seats at our show, and more.

La Reve

Now I can say: Been there, done that -- I should have bought the book! This show rocked. A la Cirque (de Solei?), La Reve was absolutely breathtaking. The light show, the athletic and jam packed routines were just unbelievable. The difference between Cirque and Reve, I think, is that the latter is focused on utilizing water in their shows (diving, that sort of thing). The theatre being dome-shaped, and I don't know if I can explain what I am about to say and do justice to this one part of the show ... where, at ever increasing heights, performers (and as part of the routine or show) were being "dropped" into the pool -- and we're talking heights of 30-40 feet!! ... And then, this one last "diver", was lifted through and out the top of the theatre ceiling (usually the case if the performer is changing to another costume or whatever for the next scene) .. only for the brief suspense of nothing happening broken by the re-entry of this performer down to the pool - OK some 60-75 feet?? It was ridiculous! R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S! Here I thought this part of the show was over and on to the next, when this final guy comes through the theatre dome top to be dropped into water, perfectly vertical, little splash. Gasp! Needless to say the appreciative crowd gave a thunderous applause and many oohs and aahs. (don't people die at impact at those heights? hmmm)

Late and exhausted we returned to the hotel. I had but a few hours before I had to meet my shuttle service at the lobby the following morning for an early flight back.

So much for what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!

www.riverbirchresearch.com

Several weeks in the working and our company's website is now much more polished and more or less complete. Thanks to my friend Frank Lam, we now have a professional presence on the internet to reflect the quality of work we do in clinical research.

Frank has put up with my many "requests" for changes or ideas, many of which are still ongoing as we strive to put together the best website for our company's current needs. But this is not merely my own vision. Oh no. Frank has inputted many of his own ideas and design elements, many of which I initially would "gently" disagree with, but later find Frank's eye for webpages and his ideas more appropriate and aesthetic than my own. And for this, your own critical decisions for our site, I thank you immensely.

So as we strive to bring more clinical trials studies to Northern Georgia, I welcome you all to view our new look at www.riverbirchresearch.com.

www.riverbirchresearch.com

My friend Frank is helping me create a website for our clinical research company, River Birch Research Alliance, L.L.C. So far we've managed to register the domain (see blog entry title) for the site, but little else. Still work-in-progress, but I am very excited as this will be one step closer to getting our name out into the wider community, as the current existing website for our research work is not great.

There will be a "home" page that lists all the various tabs/pages, as well as pages for: (1) our company (brief history), (2) our philosophy (mission statement), (3) our team (list of providers, research staff and me), (4) information for sponsors (pharmaceutical companies) and CROs (clinical research organizations), (5) information for patients (how to enroll in studies, etc..), (6) current/ongoing/upcoming clinical trials studies and our past research experience and (7) a "contact us" page.

The site will be simple and clean, with a lot of white spaces and calm nature pictures of the Blue Ridge area, with easy flowing text. Easy enough to envision, but it will probably be a greater task to communicate effectively cross continent with my friend Frank in getting it done just right.

It's exciting! And thanks, Frank, for lending your time, and expertise! I will work to get you justly reimbursed or rewarded for your time.

Budgets, Contracts, Grants

All confidential stuff!! Hmm.. how can I write this entry in a way to depict what I did today and what my job entails...?

OK, so my first day on the job was pretty laid back. I did the usual admin stuff: (1) payroll, (2) confidentiality agreement, (3) organize desk space and work surroundings, (4) set up computer connection, (5) telephone/direct line, (6) work email address, (7) medical insurance paperwork, etc.. etc..

I met with Ray to discuss plans and what I can get a start on right away and more long term goals. The immediate thing was to learn how the grants all work: how different study grants are applied for, how the billing/payment works, relationship between CROs (clinical research organizations)-pharmaceutical companies (or sponsors)-institution/investigator/site, how patients get erolled (inclusion/exclusion criteria), etc.. etc..

By the end of my first day, I am now pretty familiar with what a standard grant/agreement/protocol looks like. Over the next few days I will be learning a whole lot more, when I get to create my own spreadsheet/system of organizing the various budgets (monies received, etc..), a system for keeping track of all active grants, and also to inform more physicians in the practice (Kelly too!) of what we (the research folks) are doing so that we can enroll more qualified patients in to studies, and thus increase and build this fledgling enterprise.

Ooohhh, it just sounds too exciting. I think I've been craving a challenge like this for some time: refine my management skills (or if any, acquire some more... hee hee), learn a bit of the industry of pharmaceutical science/clinical trials, and get a general sense of business type applications -- i.e. getting as far away from basic science research as humanly possible :-D

That is not all accurate actually, since part of many/all contracts I've seen (today anyway) include clauses for intellectual property and publications. And I for one would like to keep up my skills and experience in writing manuscripts for publications, and this would also be a viable way to get our company name (River Birch Research Alliance, LLC) into the wider scientific community and thus more grants.

More learning. Yay!