How to Build an Infrastructure with Sites that Drives more Effective Patient Enrollment and Retention
How can pharma/biotech and CROs be better partners to Sites?
The Partnerships with Sites Summit challenges the site ecosystem on how to build an infrastructure to drive more effective patient enrollment and retention. This summit provides a timely and focused forum to rethink the entire sponsor-CRO-site partnership model—starting with enrollment as the core unmet need.
Addressing the Fundamental Issues:
• If enrollment is the core unmet need, how do we rebuild to fix this?
• How do we address the misalignment between Sponsors, CROs and Sites to truly meet the needs of patients?
• How to engage with sites early to operationalize the clinical trial design to reduce the burden to sites and patients?
2025 Co-Chairs
Matthew Maxwell, DBA
Patient-Centered Chief Growth Officer
Centricity Research
Rosalie Filling
VP, Senior Global Head, R&D Operations
Endo
Site Champions
Jyoti Angal, PhD
Director, Clinical Research
Avera Mckennan Hospital & University Health Center
Mahasweta Dutt, MS, MRA, CCRC
Associate Director, Clinical Research Operations, Office of Clinical Research, Perelman School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
Joanne Monaghan, RN, CCRC
Director, Regional Operations Northeast
Boston Clinical Trials
Mark Rapp, MD
Principal Investigator
Basil Clinical Research
Cheryl Bernstein, RN, BSN, CCRC
Director
Bernstein Clinical Research Center
Rucha Shah
Lived-experience Expert, and Assistant Clinical Research Project Manager
ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group
BioPharma Leadership
Shafaat Ali Khan
Clinical Research Lead (CRL) Director – Investigator Engagement
Eli Lilly & Co
Paris Johnson
Site Engagement Lead, Diversity; Site Management & Monitoring, R&D Late Delivery Oncology
AstraZeneca
Emilio Neto, MBA
Global Head of Country Site & Operations,
Biogen
Tracey Robertson
Head of Patient & Site Engagement Capabilities,
Boehringer Ingelheim
Brandon Doyle, MBA
Associate Director, Study Site Engagement
Takeda
Carrie Lewis
Executive Director, Clinical Program Optimization
Endo
Advocacy Catalysts
Sharon Rivera-Sanchez
Patient Advocate, Founder and Chief Executive Director
Trials of Color & Saving Pennies 4 A Cure
Patrick Gee Sr, PhD, JLC
Patient Advocate, Founder & Chief Executive Hope Dealer
iAdvocate, Inc
Jimmy Bechtel, MBA
VP,
Site Engagement
Society for Clinical Research Sites (SCRS)
Joan Chambers
Senior Consultant
Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development
Jim Kremidas
Executive Director
Association for MultiSite Research Corporations (AMRC)
Norman Goldfarb, MBA
Executive Director
The Site Council
The timing of this summit arrives at a critical inflection point:
• Sites are operating at 60% capacity and need much more support
• Sites have more burden shifted on to them
• Sponsors and CROs are seeking sustainable partnerships rooted in trust, operational alignment, and shared outcomes
• The disconnect between technological intent and site/patient usability is widening
• There's a growing call for early engagement, co-creation, and transparency across trial stakeholders
Key Themes
Site perspectives on
challenges & opportunities
Redesigning site-sponsor-CRO partnership infrastructures
Improving operational dynamics between CROs and sites
Rebuilding
Trust
Mobile & digital tech:
what works, what doesn’t
Key trends shaping the site ecosystem
Successful collaboration case studies