More than 450 delegates attended four workshops and 20 conference sessions across four days as the ACTA International Clinical Trials Conference explored the vision of the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance: Better health through best evidence.

The overriding message of the Conference was that by sharing – be it data, knowledge, or infrastructure – and by working together, including consumers and embedding trials into everyday health care, we could generate a learning health system that becomes more efficient in improving healthcare and delivers better value and better quality of care.

Dr Pamela Tenaerts, Executive Director of the Clinical Trial Transformation Initiative in the United States summed up the essence of the Conference in her presentation on day one when she said, “Getting better value out of clinical trials means more clinical trials to help patients.” Dr Anna Lavelle, Chair of Medicines Australia, supported this when she said, “We are here for the patient. The patient drives this.”

On day one, the official Conference Twitter hashtag #ACTAconf was trending at number four in Australia, a great indicator of engagement with the conference topics.

Conference presentations are now available, with more to come as speakers give their consent for publication.

Presentation slides have been made available to all attendees, and the video of the main sessions will be made available on our website soon. We continue to add more slide sets, with permission from speakers.

ACTA would like to thank everyone who made the ACTA International Clinical Trials Conference possible.

International speakers at the conference were: Dr Richard Pazdur, Director, US Food and Drug Administration’s Oncology Center of Excellence, Prof Derek C. Angus, Distinguished Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr Barbara Bierer, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital – founder and leader of the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Centre of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard, Mr Stuart Spencer, Senior Executive Editor, The Lancet, United Kingdom, Dr Pamela Tenaerts, Executive Director, Clinical Trial Transformation Initiative, United States, Mr Simon Denegri OBE, National Director for Patients, Carers and the Public in Research at the National Institute for Health Research, United Kingdom, Prof Neena Modi, Professor of Neonatal Medicine, Imperial College London.

The ACTA International Clinical Trials Conference was presented with the support of Principle Partners, The Australian Department of Health.
 
Gold sponsors: Bellberry, NSW Health, Pfizer Australia. ARO partners; NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre and The George Institute for Global Health. Silver sponsors: AstraZeneca, Cancer Institute NSW, MTP Connect, The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services and the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre.
ARO Supporters: South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and Supporters: ICON Group, Epworth Healthcare, St John of God Subiaco Hospital, Australian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group, Almac Group, VCS Foundation, Greenlight Medical, Praxis Australia, ClinTrialRefer and Monash School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine.