How We're Helping
EmpiraMed is a digital health technology company that performs post-market, prospective, Virtual Clinical Studies to generate Real World Evidence for the Life Science Industry. We sit at the intersection of DCT (Decentralized Clinical Trials) and RWE. Formed in 2011, we pioneered the methods and delivery of 100% site-less virtual studies. Our software products help manufacturers demonstrate real world value and comparative effectiveness to prescribers; produce evidence for expanding market access; deliver more efficient methods to meet FDA mandates for Phase IV Long Term Follow-Up studies; deploy patient-centered rare disease registries; and, support more rapid regulatory approval of new indications and label extensions using real world data. Our services are novel and differentiated through an automated rules-engine for agile study deployment; complete mobile device independence; the largest specialty pharmacy network for patient recruitment in the industry; a complete clinical research gamification and incentivization system to boost patient engagement; and, a patient-centered method of capturing clinic data without the burden, expense, or delays related to clinical trial research agreements. We are proud that our studies average 80% monthly survey compliance which is over 3X the industry benchmark for noninterventional clinical studies. Our software and services are internationalized, localized, and support all industry compliance requirements including HIPAA, GDPR, GCP, and 21 CFR Part 11. Our customers have included global biopharmaceutical leaders such as Merck Sharp & Dohme, Janssen, Sanofi Genzyme, and Takeda Oncology. We also have contracts with novel patient recruitment channel partners including leading specialty pharmacies such as CVS Health and Optum, international Patient Advocacy Groups such as LUNGevity, academic research centers, disease management call centers, and organizations to support direct-to-patient eRecruitment.
The People Behind EmpiraMed
Keith Parent President & CEO
A proven executive leader with over 20 years’ experience in the fields of information technology, Mr. Parent is the founder and CEO of Court Square Group, which he established in 1995. Mr. Parent holds a Master of Science in Computer Science(MSCS) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Siena College. Mr. Parent has been involved in the implementation and maintenance of enterprise level systems across the pre-clinical and clinical organizations of numerous Life Science clients. Under Mr. Parents direction Court Square has managed over 5000 servers world-wide for their Life Science Clientele including CTMS systems, Global Submission systems, eCTD systems, FDA Gateways, Adverse Event Reporting systems, as well as numerous Clinical Trial systems and Longitudinal Patient Registry development systems. With responsibility for over 100,000+ users in various clinical settings, Mr. Parent oversees numerous FDA and HIPAA regulated environments as well as being the exclusive North American Hosting partner for a Healthcare focused Mobile computing solutions company.
Cord Awtry VP Engineering
Cord has extensive experience in designing and building modern high-performance software applications. He has worked on a wide variety of technologies from mobile applications to consumer websites with millions of users and from CRM to HCIT. Cord's sweet-spot is in building Java-based SaaS apps that can scale to large capacities.
Cord got his start as a QA engineer for iMarket, giving him a unique view into the development process. He quickly progressed to being a full-time engineer for Logility and then the social media startup Quickdot.
Cord's most recent projects include developing a server-side system for PCHGames as well as an accompanying iOS/Android application, and Android application for Kofax Mobile Capture, and an iOS/Android application for PCH VIP. He has also worked on high-volume sites such as Publisher's Clearinghouse.
From 2001 to 2003 Cord worked for one of the CEO of EmpiraMed's prior companies, MarketSoft Corporation, as a Principal Software Engineer. At MarketSoft Cord helped designed a large-scale Java-based application that was used by some of the biggest Fortune 500 companies for mission-critical systems.
Cord is a serial entrepreneur and greatly enjoys the world of software startups. Beyond being with EmpiraMed, Quickdot and iMarket from the beginning, Cord has also been the co-founder of several companies, notably FX Engines and the social aggregator Amego. FX Engines was a high-volume and high-speed automated currency trading company which afforded Cord much necessary experience in the world of data analysis.
Cord attended Cambridge School of Culinary Arts and started his career as a professional chef. Prior to that Cord attended Brandeis University in the Biology and Physics departments.
Synne Wing VP Clinical Operations & Client Services
Synne Wing has two decades of healthcare technology and research experience. Starting her career as a behavioral health clinician, she transitioned into healthcare project management. During her lengthy tenure at Inflexxion (now an Integrated Behavioral Health company), she oversaw both technological development and clinical trials for many National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovative Research projects as well as industry sponsored research and software development. In addition to leading project operations, Synne served as part of Inflexxion’s medical affairs team developing proposals and business strategies, providing product management, and leading customer relations. Synne joins EmpiraMed after several years on the operations team within Optum’s Life Sciences division. At Optum Epidemiology, Synne managed many prospective and retrospective post market safety studies. Synne graduated from Wheaton College with a major in psychology and received her Masters of Social Work from Boston University.
Ginger Gargas Finance & Administration Manager
Ginger Gargas began her career in the financial services industry gaining over fifteen years of experience in retail banking, special projects and business unit finance and accounting. Over the last nineteen years she has shifted her focus to accounting and finance support for software technology companies at various stages of growth and development. Ginger graduated from Salem State University with a Bachelors of Science in Business Management and has received her Masters of Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from Bentley University.
Strategic Advisors
Greg Erman Co-Founder & Advisor
Greg Erman is a serial entrepreneur and mentor in the life science industry. As the founder and CEO of 6 companies, Greg raised about $100M in venture capital and successfully grew his businesses to about $20M in annual revenue and 150 employees. Each of Greg’s 3 VC-backed startups exited to large public companies while generating returns of up to 12X investment. The businesses he built are diverse and cut across many industries in the fields of biotech, medical devices, and digital health. Greg was the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence at what is now named Mass General Brigham where he collaborated on over 250 life science research projects and spun-out multiple startups within a 10-year period. Greg was most recently the President & CEO of EmpiraMed, Inc., a decentralized clinical trials company with a unique platform to generate real world evidence for late stage and commercial biopharmaceutical assets. He formed EmpiraMed in 2011 where he and his co-founders pioneered the field of virtual, site-less clinical trials using novel direct-to-patient data capture technology.
Greg holds BSEE and Marketing MBA degrees with high honors from Rutgers University, sits on several biotech corporate boards, is an angel investor, and is a part-time paid entrepreneurship lecturer at Harvard Medical School. Greg gives back to the community by volunteering as a mentor and judge for Harvard Innovation Labs, the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab, MassChallenge, MIT, and MassBio, as well as by serving on the boards of non-profit organizations, such as Life Science Cares and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts. Greg is an avid coastal sailor and racer, jazz trumpeter, and tennis player.
Greg Erman’s full biography can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/GregErman/
Grannum R. Sant, MD, FRCS, FACS Medical Affairs Advisor
Dr. Sant has a unique combination of extensive academic and biopharmaceutical industry experiences. Prior to joining pharma, he was Professor and Chair of the Urology Department at Tufts University School of Medicine, a national and international Key Opinion Leader (KOL) in urology and Past President of the New England Section of the American Urological Association (AUA). He was a Principal Investigator for many pharmaceutical companies' pivotal registration trials and the National Institutes of Health (NIH-NIDDK) and a member of multiple pharma Medical Advisory Boards. He is the editor of two urology textbooks (The Pathologic Principles of Urology and Interstitial Cystitis), ten Journal Supplements and author of over 120 peer-reviewed publications.
He has served as VP & Head of US Oncology and Urology Medical Affairs at Sanofi US and its legacy companies (Sanofi-Synthelabo, Sanofi-Aventis) and VP & Head of US and Global Medical Affairs for Rare Orphan Diseases at Genzyme. He spearheaded six product launches in urology, oncology and rare orphan diseases, led six disease state Registries (two in urology/oncology in the US and four Global Registries for Lysosomal Storage Diseases) as well as publication and scientific communication teams across multiple therapeutic areas and built Medical Scientific Liaison (MSL) teams in Urology/Oncology and Rare Orphan Diseases.
He is Professor (Adjunct) of Urology at Tufts University School of Medicine, President-elect of the Academy of Physicians in Clinical Research (APCR), Board of Trustees member of the Academy of Physicians in Clinical Research (APCR) and the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) and a member of the Standards Committee of the International Society of Medical Publications Professionals (ISMPP). He serves on the editorial boards of multiple national and international scientific journals.
Dr. Francis X. Campion, M.D. F.A.C.P. Clinical Informatics Advisor
Dr. Campion ('F.X.') is the Chief Medical Officer of Ayasdi, a healthcare analytics and population management company. Previously, Dr. Campion was Chief Medical Officer of Dovetail Health and Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Alere Analytics through its acquisition of DiagnosisOne, Inc. where Dr. Campion was VP of Clinical Affairs. He also serves as a consultant for design of Phase IV clinical research studies for drug and device safety at Outcome Sciences, Inc. Cambridge, MA. From 2008 - 2011 he served as the Director of Provider Programs at Outcome creating patient registries, studies, and technologies for evaluating real-world outcomes. Dr. Campion oversaw expansion of clinical registry programs with hospitals and physician professional associations leading up to the acquisition of Outcome Sciences by Quintiles, Inc., the world's largest provider of pharmaceutical research clinical research services in 2011. These included national stroke and heart failure registries for the American Heart Association and quality improvement registries for the American Society of Clinical Oncology and American College of Rheumatology.
Dr. Campion maintains his internal medicine clinical practice at the Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates Kenmore center in Boston. Previously he served as the Director for Clinical Information Systems and as the Director for the Complex Chronic Care disease management program at HVMA and the Atrius Health System where he focused on the optimization of the Epic EMR. He is a member of the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School where he participates in research initiatives involving the use of clinical information systems for biosurveillance, patient safety and clinical decision support. Dr. Campion has been listed in the referral service, "Best Doctors" since 1997.
Prior to coming to HVMA/Atrius Health in 2005, Dr. Campion served for 10 years as the Vice President for Clinical Integration at the Caritas Christi Health Care System in Boston and also on the physician advisory council with Meditech, Inc. Prior to that he was a member of the Internal Medicine Dept. and the Director for Quality Resources and Risk Management at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, MA. He received his AB degree in biology from the College of the Holy Cross, medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed internal medicine residency training at the New England Deaconess Hospital.
Richard Friedberg, MD, Phd Clinical Advisor
Dr. Friedberg has the honor of being the President of the College of American Pathologists which serves patients, pathologists, and the public by fostering and advocating excellence in the practice of pathology and laboratory medicine worldwide. Dr. Friedberg is also the Chairman of the Department of Pathology at Baystate Health in Springfield, MA, Medical Director at Baystate Reference Laboratories, and Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
At Baystate, Dr. Friedberg oversees a hybrid academic/private practice group of 21 pathologists responsible for 50,000 surgical specimens, 80,000 cytology specimens, 6 million laboratory tests, and a regional reference laboratory with more than 500 FTE and $85MM in annual revenue. He is also Professor and Deputy Chairman of the Department of Pathology, Tufts University School of Medicine. Dr. Friedberg holds a BS with Honors from Stanford University, an MD from Duke University, a PhD in coagulation biochemistry from Duke University, and a Master’s (SM) in Health Care Management from Harvard University. He is a Certified Physician Executive (CPE) by the American College of Physician Executives. In 2007 and again in 2010, he was elected to the Board of Governors of the College of American Pathologists, where he chairs both the Council of Government & Professional Affairs and the Strategy Management Committee.
Isabella Sledge, MD, MPH Health Outcomes Advisor
Isabella is a board certified internist, who has dedicated much of her career to various evidence-based medical initiatives designed for physician and patient consumption. Dr. Sledge was Medical Director at MetaWorks, Inc., a health outcomes research company that was acquired by United BioSource Corporation. She has published numerous systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and technology assessments for pharmaceutical, medical device, non-profit and government clients. Her work has emphasized the application of evidence to the development of medical devices and emerging technologies and the translation of outcomes research into healthcare policy. Dr. Sledge was a founder of Strata, LLC, a software company that created patient data registries. Dr. Sledge received her medical degree from University of Maryland School of Medicine and holds a Masters in Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Mitch Bloom Legal Advisor
Mitch Bloom serves as outside general counsel to EmpiraMed. Mitch is a partner at Goodwin Procter LLP and is co-chair of the firm's Life Sciences Practice. He represents emerging and public growth companies in day to day corporate matters and provides strategic counsel on major business transactions including venture capital financings, private placements and public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and other strategic collaborations and commercial transactions. Mitch has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America in the Biotechnology Law category. He earned his J.D. from Boston College Law School and B.S. from Suffolk University.