COVID-19 Business Continuity Planning Pulse – December 2020

Customer Colleagues,

At Syneos Health, our priorities continue to be protecting health and safety, while partnering with our customers, sponsors and investigators to deliver life-saving medicines to patients worldwide. As part of our commitment to continuous communication, following our initial Business Continuity Planning (BCP) update and weekly editions, we’re now issuing a monthly BCP PULSE to keep you aware of our efforts. 

REFLECTING ON THE PAST, PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE

As 2020 comes to a close, we reflect on how we weathered the past 12 months and celebrate both our learnings and successes. We are boosted by the news that vaccines and treatments are closer than ever, and optimistic that we’ll be reactivating and reopening more broadly in the coming months.

But that’s not to say we’re letting our guard down: we continue to monitor the increased instances of COVID-19 across the globe, continually looking to enrich our virtual environment for employees and customers. New approaches to decentralized clinical solutions, remote monitoring, and field team deployments and engagement have been fast-tracked during the pandemic, and we’ll continue to evolve these capabilities to accelerate performance.

We are proud to be partnering with biopharmaceutical companies on more than 80 projects related to COVID-19 assets. Syneos Health is eager to bring to bear the strength of 25,000 employees working across clinical and commercial disciplines – in sync – to deliver innovative, integrated solutions that change patients' lives.

BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING REACTIVATION SUMMARY

Our Business Continuity Planning Transition Management Office (TMO), in alignment with FDA, CDC, WHO and other local and international health authority guidance, includes multiple workstreams. In each BCP PULSE, we’re including select workstream updates to keep you aware of our learnings and efforts.

• Regulatory Guidance: Aggregating and synthesizing EMA and FDA guidance, updating regulations and restrictions in order to provide direction to our employees and customers on when – or when not – to pivot and/or reactivate.
• Change Management: Working internally and with customers on change management activities to ensure preparedness as dynamics shift.
• Field Team Connections: Monitoring company-by-company redeployment activities, compiling best practices for remote activities and HCP preferences, and benchmarking remote versus in-person detailing metrics.
• Sponsor Connections: Working collaboratively with sponsors in the “now normal” to press forward with studies underway while activating new trials.
• Continued Preparedness Planning: Preparing for evolving trends in COVID-19 cases, coupled with the annual influenza surge, by developing scenario plans and sharing best-practice learnings.

 

BEST PRACTICES – BEING AGILE TO ADAPT TO OUR EVOLVED ENVIRONMENT

Working hand in hand with hundreds of companies – and our 25,000 employees worldwide – we’re designing clinical and commercial solutions every day. Each challenge presents the opportunity to apply key learnings to build better approaches and resiliency.

• Clinical and Commercial Solutions for COVID-19 Assets: Clinical trials to test vaccines and treatments during a pandemic demand extreme speed in start-up, a rapid operational tempo and access to subjects in high-risk areas for the targeted disease. Getting these products to market requires an agile partner with deep therapeutic expertise, novel strategy and flawless execution. At Syneos Health, we believe that by sharing real-world knowledge and insights across our organization, we can deliver better, smarter and faster. Find out more about our Clinical expertise and Commercial solutions that can accelerate your path to market and most importantly to patients.

REAL-TIME RESOURCES

We’re regularly updating our COVID-19 Resource Center with capabilities and perspectives to navigate, deliver and learn together. We’re looking to exchange your learnings and experiences too.  Should you have ideas, comments or concerns, please contact us.

Thank you for your partnership.