EMA Wellness Bolsters Executive Leadership to Support Growing Global Demand for a Singular Clinical Trial Data, Analytics and Adjudication Platform

New CEO, Chief Business Officer and Executive Advisors bring track records of driving growth and innovation in successful clinical trials

BOSTON, Jan. 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ --  EMA Wellness (EMAW) the market leader in providing a unified eCOA, analytics and adjudication platform to sponsor and CRO partners announced the appointment of digital health leader Colin Bower as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and pharmaceutical industry veteran Dr. Alex Tkachenko as Chief Business Officer (CBO).  With deep industry expertise and track records driving growth and stakeholder value, the new executives will help EMAW scale internal processes, product and global growth, speeding its mission to drive faster, safer more efficacious trial outcomes.

With his transition from Executive Chairman to CEO at EMAW, Bower has also assembled a top team of executive advisors, including Dr. Steven Brannan and Dr. Raymond Sanchez, the former Chief Medical Officers of Karuna Therapeutics and Cerevel Therapeutics, along with other leaders in AI healthcare applications and clinical Research Development.

Bower has successfully built and scaled companies for substantial stakeholder returns, including as CEO of Clintara (acquired by Bracket, a Parthenon Capital Partners company), VP of Bracket (now Signant, acquired by GenStar Capital) and CCO of Panalgo (acquired by Welsh Carson and HG Capital).  Bower was most recently CEO of Vivosense, a leading digital health company, and will remain on the Vivosense Board of Directors.

"I'm excited to transition full time to EMAW CEO to help accelerate the tremendous growth that has already made EMAW a market leader and go-to partner in clinical research," said Bower. "As we continue to expand, I look forward to making sure our customers are able to realize the full value of the market's first integrated data, analytics and adjudication platform, particularly in the instant recognition and adjudication of safety and other signals to protect patients and improve outcomes quality."

Alex Tkachenko, EMAW's CBO, will report directly to the CEO and oversee the company's commercial, corporate and business development efforts.  Alex brings to his role over 20 years of pharmaceutical R&D, entrepreneurial and private equity experience.  He joins EMAW from EcoR1 Capital, a leading biopharma investment firm with $4B under management.  While at EcoR1, Alex led the firm's investments in Aktis Oncology and Actio Bio.  Prior to EcoR1, Alex was the founding CEO of BlackThorn Therapeutics, which was acquired by Neumora, leading to its IPO in 2023.  Alex started his industry career at Genentech, where he held both commercial and R&D positions. 

"Having lived the realities of clinical trials as both an executive and an investor, I deeply appreciate the unique value of the EMAW platform", said Tkachenko.  "Our industry badly needs a singular solution for all participants in a clinical trial – sponsors, sites, CROs, subjects, raters – that offers real time signal detection, quality control and adjudication.  I am excited to join Colin and the entire EMAW team to support our mission of improving quality and speed of clinical trials industry-wide".

This leadership expansion comes on the heels of the implementation of EMAW's industry first AI supported eCOA, data analytics and adjudication platform in global phase 3 trials.  The EMAW platform remains the only platform in the market today which was purpose-built using a single code base to ingest all patient/clinician data modalities, provide immediate rules-based insights and blinded data analytics to designated stakeholders, and integrate all deep dives, remediation and adjudication efforts.  The results are faster insights and workstreams to improve patient safety, address AEs and protocol deviations, enhance inclusion/exclusion decisions for subject selection, drive adherence and improve ratings performance and data quality.  The EMAW platform uses AI to complement human efforts and validated models for faster signal detection amongst data sets with 10's of thousands of data points, including review of large audio and video files.  Today, the EMAW platform is used in more than 25 countries and by nearly 250 sites. 

In assembling the Executive Advisors, Bower curated a team of successful industry leaders with whom he has a long track record of success.  "I am so impressed by our executive advisors.  We meet regularly 1:1 and as a team, so sponsor partners really get direct access to leading market operators and thought leaders.  They have led incredible development teams and implemented innovative and effective trial designs for successful drug approvals.  They are experts in their areas and remain universally respected and liked.  They are true collaborators passionate about improving the field in which they have spent their professional lives.  We are incredibly fortunate to have them."

About EMAW
EMA Wellness's (EMAW) leading clinical trial technology was purpose-built by EMAW's leading experts in the Neuropsychiatry and eCOA/digital health fields to more easily, efficiently, and effectively collect, clean, analyze and action clinical trial data.  The technology platform can be used from any laptop, tablet or phone with a standard browser and enables sponsor and CRO partners to make faster and more informed decisions around inclusion/exclusion, safety, AE's, and ratings quality.  EMAW's platform harmonizes rater and patient data collected in the clinic or the real world and integrates across functions including: rater training, central ratings, independent clinician reviews, patients, sites, and sponsors in clinical trials. The platform includes integrated remediation and adjudication functionality to address signals and provides a full white box audit trail from the time any user signs onto the platform.  The results are improved patient safety, fewer AEs and protocol deviations, advanced inclusion/exclusion for improved subject selection and better site and rater performance.

EMAW is fundamentally differentiated from traditional eCOA and related technologies because it was built using a single code.  This improves speed, accuracy, functionality, ease of use and scale.  EMAW is further differentiated by the seamless integration of multimodal data ingestion, configuration of rules and models for immediate signal detection and notifications, and any subsequent deep dive, review or adjudication all within one platform.  These functions are facilitated by AI transcription and signal detection capabilities which supplement human reviews by qualified clinicians and insights by biostatisticians and others.  Sites, PI's, raters, reviewers and other trial stakeholders with requisite rights can access data instantly and adjudicate or remediate within the platform in real time.  The platform is also highly scalable and therefore extremely cost effective for our sponsor partners. 

No other trial technology offers a comparable, integrated combination of speed, configurability and adjudication functionality in a singular platform. 

Media Contact:
Stephen Saber
[email protected] 

SOURCE EMA Wellness