COVID-19 Business Continuity Planning Pulse - November 2020

Customer Colleagues,

At Syneos Health, our priorities continue to be protecting our employees’ health and safety, and 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. 

LIVING OUR VALUES TO REMAIN RESILIENT

As many countries around the globe report record increases in COVID-19 cases, Syneos Health is deploying learnings from the early days of the pandemic to safeguard against additional disruption to employees, customers and patients. What we gleaned over eight months of tracking, reporting and adapting has increased our confidence that the new ways of doing business we already have in place will minimize the impact of continued case upticks.

While it’s likely that no organization was entirely at the ready to navigate COVID-19 and transition to highly virtual operations, we’re proud of how our strong performance – complemented by our employees’ agility and resilience – has earned Syneos Health a number of prestigious industry awards this year:

• Inclusion on Forbes 2020 List of World’s Best Employers, ranking highest among biopharmaceutical outsourcing organizations.
• Fourth consecutive year of being honored with the Society for Clinical Research Sites Eagle Award, recognizing the CRO that best exemplifies a site-focused approach to clinical trial management. The award acknowledges outstanding leadership, professionalism, integrity, passion and dedication to advancing the clinical research profession through strong site partnerships.
• A number of online training & learning awards for our Learning Solutions teams, including a Davey Award in the Websites – Training category; appearance on the Online Learning Library 2020 Companies to Watch list; and a Chief Learning Officer Bronze Award for Best Companies in Learning & Development.

We believe that by focusing on our Values throughout the pandemic – Challenge the Status Quo, Collaborate to Deliver Solutions and Passionate to Change Lives – we fostered resilience, enabling employees to feel safe and engaged, and focused on agile innovation.

We are proud to be partnering with biopharmaceutical companies on more than 60 projects related to COVID assets. Syneos Health is eager to bring to bear the strength of 24,000 employees working across clinical and commercial disciplines in sync, by sharing data, insights and knowledge 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.
• Site Payments: Recognizing the severe financial strain sites are experiencing during the pandemic, Syneos Health answered the call from the Society for Clinical Research Sites to support sites during this challenging time by working to release holdback funds.
• 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 24,000 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.

• COVID-19 Dynamic Control Room: The COVID-19 fast-evolving landscape requires dynamic insights that enable rapid ability to pivot strategy and execution. Our Dynamic Control Room – a collaborative insights network – provides unique access​ to data and cross-functional experts who “read through” the noise, translating insights into actionable guidance. Regular cross-functional engagement​ between our lab-to-life Clinical and Commercial teams keeps track of market events and guides ongoing refinement of plan and resource optimization. Contact us to find out more.

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.