Triangle headline news this week includes:

  • RTI to host Zika research
  • Quintiles offers new glucose monitoring service
  • Cree offers new LEDS to boost plants
  • PatientPay adds a new exec
  • Quintiles joint venture Q2 wins an award

The details:

  • RTI International to serve as data coordinating center for study of pregnant women in areas affected by Zika

​Source: RTI

RTI International will serve as the data coordinating center for a multi-country study to evaluate the magnitude of health risks that Zika virus infection poses to pregnant women and their developing fetuses and infants. The study is led by the National Institutes of Health and Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz-Fiocruz.

The study begins in Puerto Rico and will expand to several locations in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala and other areas that are experiencing active local transmission of the virus.

“By serving as the data coordinating center, we will be able to help this multisite study monitor data and develop tools necessary to support the development of treatment and prevention strategies for addressing Zika,” said Elizabeth McClure, Ph.D., perinatal epidemiologist at RTI International and principal investigator of the data coordinating center.

  • Quintiles Introduces Continuous Glucose Monitoring Services to Improve Diabetes Outcomes

Source: Quintiles

Quintiles [on June 24] announced the launch of its new Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) service offering. This new solution combines innovative, wearable technology with Quintiles’ deep therapeutic and analytical expertise to help enhance the efficiency and quality of diabetes-focused clinical trials.

When used in clinical research, the new CGM offering will provide investigators with access to a myriad of customized data analytics and performance reports through its award-winning Quintiles Infosario® technology platform. These optimized glycemic data sets can be analyzed more efficiently to uncover trends such as non-compliance and potential safety triggers faster than traditional diabetes monitoring models. In addition, Quintiles experts from the company’s Diabetes Center of Excellence will provide dedicated support for the offering – combining data and therapeutic expertise to drive smarter protocol design and enhance patient safety and compliance.

“According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), every six seconds, a person dies from diabetes-related causes and almost half of those deaths are people under the age of 60,” said Margaret Keegan, president of Data Sciences, Safety and Regulatory Services at Quintiles. “With diabetes diagnoses on the rise, the need for innovative and accessible treatments also increases. CGM can provide a variety of in-depth measures from diabetes patients – information that can be used to enhance the way patients are treated for diabetes and why this new offering is so critical.”

  • Cree Expands Portfolio of LEDs for Horticulture Lighting

Source: Cree

Cree, Inc. expands its industry-leading portfolio of LEDs optimized for horticulture lighting with the introduction of the new Cree XLamp® XQ-E Photo Red LED. The XQ-E Photo Red LED is capable of providing very high levels of growth-promoting light wavelengths from a footprint that is less than one-third the size of its closest competitor with similar output.  The new XQ-E LED extends the family of smallest LEDs optimized for horticulture and enables lighting manufacturers to reduce the size of luminaires and lower their system cost.

This addition expands Cree’s wide range of XQ and XP LEDs that deliver the industry’s highest Photosynthetic Photon Flux (PPF), efficiency and reliability. Both LED families enable the replacement of incumbent lighting technologies at radically lower power with similar spectral content. For example, a high-bay reference design built using Cree® white and photo red LEDs deliver higher average PPF Density than a 1000W double-ended high pressure sodium (HPS) fixture while drawing half the power.

“Cree® LEDs enable us to offer full spectrum LED grow lights that truly mimic natural sunlight,” said Rami Vardi, chief executive officer, Spectrum King LED. “The high performance, high efficiency and high reliability of Cree® LEDs allow us to match the intensity of traditional HPS lamps at a lower system cost, longer life and lower power.”

The XQ-E Photo Red LED is capable of delivering more than 6.4 μmol/sec of the 660nm peak wavelength light that can be beneficial for plant growth from a 1.6mm x 1.6mm footprint. Cree’s white and color LEDs deliver the full spectrum of light and mimic natural sunlight. Cree’s color LEDs, including royal blue, green, red, photo red and far red LEDs, deliver high PPF in the wavelengths best-suited for the different stages of plant growth. The combination of consistent packages, footprints and drive currents allow easy tuning of spectral content and intensity at the luminaire level. Cree’s new photo red LED leverages the XLamp XQ-E family’s proven optical symmetry and consistency across all colors to improve color uniformity and simplify the production process for lighting manufacturers.

  • PatientPay Appoints Paul Boemer Executive Vice President

Source: PatientPay

PatientPay, the leader in paperless billing solutions for the healthcare industry, today announced the appointment of Paul Boemer as Executive Vice President.

“All along his career path, Paul has built business units, divisions and whole companies that delivered meaningful benefits to their customers and measurable results to their stakeholders,” said Tom Furr, PatientPay’s CEO. “We are excited to have such an accomplished builder of businesses and customer relationships join the PatientPay team.”

In his role, Boemer will lead PatientPay’s efforts to expand its presence in hospitals and relationships with banks and revenue cycle management companies (RCM). He will report directly to Furr.

Boemer brings more than three decades of experience in the healthcare accounting and payments industry. He was with FIS, a global leader in financial services technology and outsourced services, rising to the position of Senior VIce President, Healthcare and Government Solutions until the unit was sold in 2012. Since that time, Boemer has been a consultant to a number of organizations in electronic processing and payments.

  • Q2 Solutions Receives 2016 Global Supplier Award from Eli Lilly and Company

Source: Quintiles

Q2 Solutions, a global clinical trials laboratory services organization [and Quintiles joint venture], today announced that the company has received the 2016 Lilly Global Supplier Award. Q2 Solutions was one of 12 companies to receive the award this year, recognizing the company’s ongoing contributions to Lilly’s drug development efforts.

Each year, the Lilly Global Supplier Award recognizes suppliers who have worked collaboratively to deliver a positive and measurable impact on Lilly’s corporate objectives and priorities. Lilly presented the award to Q2Solutions representatives during a special ceremony in Indianapolis.

“It is a tremendous honor to receive this prestigious recognition from Lilly,” said Costa Panagos, chief executive officer, Q2 Solutions. “To earn this award in our is a testament to our employees’ dedication to scientific excellence and on-time, quality delivery. We are proud to be recognized for our work with Lilly; work that we know will help improve human health through innovation that transforms science and data into actionable medical insights.”