Avanir Joins Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance (DTRA) as a Founding Member to Advance Access to Clinical Trials

ALISO VIEJO, Calif., April 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has joined the Decentralized Trial Research Alliance (DTRA), a recently launched coalition of 90 life sciences and healthcare organizations, as a founding member. DTRA is uniting industry stakeholders, including healthcare companies, regulators, patient groups and research organizations with a singular mission to make clinical-trial participation widely accessible by advancing policies, research practices and new technologies in decentralized clinical research.

"We look forward to working with the DTRA to strengthen accessibility for clinical trial participation," said Wa'el Hashad, president and CEO of Avanir. "By sharing collective knowledge, we can help improve broad adoption of patient-focused, decentralized clinical trials and research that can enhance the lives of patients and their care communities."

Inclusion of representative patient populations in clinical trials by race, age and geographic location has long been an operational challenge. COVID-19 has likely impacted participation due to prospective patients' inability or reluctance to schedule visits at physical research locations.ⁱ Decentralized approaches to conducting research could help facilitate participation by a more diverse patient population and help ease COVID-19-imposed difficulties for both patients and clinical investigators.

Nadine Knowles, executive director, clinical management and operations at Avanir, will be participating on the DTRA Leadership Council. "At Avanir, we are consistently working to meet the needs of patients with central nervous system conditions," said Knowles. "Accelerating the adoption of decentralized clinical trials standards and research will be an important step in providing innovative solutions."

"We welcome Avanir's commitment to advancing decentralized trials," said Dr. Amir Kalali, founder of several collaborative life science communities, and co-convenor of DTRA. "By collaborating around decentralized research methodologies we can make the clinical trial process more patient-focused, increase trial efficiency and encourage use of technologies."

Avanir joins with its peer DTRA Member organizations to identify and address gaps and needs and advance best practices through effective education and communication. To learn more, visit DTRA.org.

About Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a pharmaceutical company committed to delivering innovative central nervous system (CNS) solutions to improve the lives of patients and their care communities. As part of our commitment, we have extensively invested in our pipeline and are dedicated to advancing CNS treatments in areas of high unmet medical need. For more information about Avanir, please visit http://www.avanir.com.

About Otsuka
Avanir is a subsidiary of Otsuka America, Inc. (OAI), a holding company established in the U.S. in 1989. OAI is wholly owned by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a global healthcare company with the corporate philosophy, "Otsuka-people creating new products for better health worldwide."

Otsuka researches, develops, manufactures and markets innovative and original pharmaceutical products for the treatment of diseases and nutraceutical products for the maintenance of everyday health. In pharmaceuticals, Otsuka is a leader in the challenging area of mental health and also has research programs on several under-addressed diseases including tuberculosis, a significant global public health issue. These commitments illustrate how Otsuka is a "big venture" company at heart, applying a youthful spirit of creativity in everything it does.

Otsuka Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd. is a subsidiary of Otsuka Holdings Co., Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The Otsuka group of companies employed 47,000 people worldwide and had consolidated sales of approximately $13.4 billion in 2020.

You can visit Otsuka Pharmaceutical's global website at https://www.otsuka.co.jp/en.

About DTRA
The Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance (DTRA) was convened to enable collaboration of stakeholders to accelerate the adoption of patient-focused, decentralized clinical trials and research within life sciences and healthcare through education and research. It works to make research participation accessible to everyone, enabled by the consistent, widespread adoption of appropriate decentralized research methods. Follow DTRA on Twitter and LinkedIn for more information.

For further information, please contact:

Corporate Communications, Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc.:
T: 202-332-8551
E: mediarelations@avanir.com

DTRA Media Contact:
Glenn Silver
Lazar – Finn Partners
T: 646-871-8485
E: glenn.silver@finnpartners.com

DTRA Non-Media Inquiries:
DTRA Secretariat
T: 619-209-7371
E: secretariat@dtra.org

ⁱ Yates I, et al. "Representation in Clinical Trials: A Review on Reaching Underrepresented Populations in Research." Clinical Researcher, 34:7. August 10, 2020.
https://acrpnet.org/2020/08/10/representation-in-clinical-trials-a-review-on-reaching-underrepresented-populations-in-research/

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SOURCE Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc.