The Conference Forum has announced that the 6th Annual DPharm: Disruptive Innovations to Advance Clinical Trials conference will take place on September 20-21, 2016 at the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, MA. Chaired by Pfizer and Janssen, DPharm is the only event designed for early adopters of new ideas to transform clinical trials for the benefit of patients.

The conference opens with artist Phil Hansen, who provides his perspective as a patient on turning a nearly tragic disability into an overflowing amount of creativity. To demonstrate innovative ways to transform patient engagement, examples from other industries are featured, including Formula One race car engineering company, McLaren, FitBit and Ochsner Healthcare system. Within the industry, the 2016 agenda is packed with examples of progress in advancing clinical trials from Eli Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, Janssen, Genentech and more.

DPharm Executive Director, Valerie Bowling says, "This year's event addresses tough questions on getting R&D to think like a service industry and to how to get the other 98% on board to make significant changes."

DPharm brings a new line-up of technology presenters for DPharm Idol, plenary and break out sessions, "Where Are They Now", and the "Today Show @ DPharm" with one-on-one interviews. A new section, DharmX, has been introduced to help stimulate fresh ideas, such as how to make it easy for physicians to be investigators. Also debuting is a session on the investor's view on what they see as up-and-coming innovation for clinical trials, and two examples of open source clinical research from the Moonshot Cancer 2020 and Zika Virus.

"Collaboration is critical to bringing innovation in clinical development, but it requires the right environment," says Craig Lipset, Head of Clinical Innovation in Pfizer Global Product Development. "DPharm provides the ideal space for drug developers, patients, technologists, regulators and other partners who want to drive change. It creates an environment to share and connect, with new partnerships sparked there each year. Seeing peers leave DPharm with the ideas and tools to innovate in their organizations gives me optimism that we can reinvent drug development together."

Dpharm is produced by the Conference Forum with the guidance of its advisory board, which includes representation from GSK, EMD Serono, Eli Lilly and Co, Patients Can't Wait, Janssen, Cancer 101, Novartis, Novartis Oncology, Bayer Healthcare, Target Health, Biogen Idec, Transparency Life Sciences and Science 37.