Category: <span>Blog</span>

Bellberry Limited, Australia’s largest reviewer of human research is celebrating its 20th year of operations. The company is an independent not-for-profit organisation providing research ethics services across Australia.

Bellberry is driven by two key objectives, to protect the welfare of research participants and to improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of research. It provides high-quality, time efficient and internationally accredited scientific and ethical review of research projects.

Bellberry provides specialist ethical oversight to almost 40% of clinical trials registered to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), which is the Australian equivalent of the FDA in the US or the EMA in Europe.

Starting with one Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) in 2004, 20 years later Bellberry has 12 HRECs operating with 150 members undertaking reviews across all phases of clinical and device trials as well as social and behavioural studies.

Bellberry is at the forefront of global drug development, and is the first organisation in Australia to achieve international accreditation for excellence and ethically sound processes in running HRECs by the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP).

Bellberry reinvests all its surplus funds back into the Australian medical research sector.

Bellberry’s Director of Operations, Jerneen Williams, and Director of Strategic Projects, Trina O’Donnell, will be attending BIO Korea.

For media inquiries please contact Alison Rogers alisonrogers@bellberry.com.au

In this episode of From Lab to Life, we hear the insights from some of the smartest researchers in the country about how they have succeeded in their careers.

In ‘Speaking From Experience’ we hear from Laureate Professor Ingrid Scheffer, Professor Doug Hilton, Emeritus Professor Ian Frazer, Professors Marnie Blewitt, Kim Jacobson and Di Yu about how they have navigated a successful path in the complex and demanding field of medical research.

Nominations are open for the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance (ACTA) Trial of the Year Awards. These awards celebrate the incredible Australians propelling our healthcare system forward through groundbreaking clinical trials.

Nominations close at midnight on Friday 29 March 2024. For more information see the ACTA website here

Bellberry’s award winning work is supported by a dedicated, talented and growing team. In this episode of From Lab to Life, we meet some of the members of the Bellberry team and find out why they do what they do. They give us an insight into the organisation, the work they do and what gets them out of bed every day.

Tune into this latest podcast episode, ‘All In A Day’s Work’ by clicking on the link below or search for ‘Bellberry’ in your favourite podcast platform.

Bellberry is pleased once again to offer our grant program to support participant engagement at scientific meetings. 

Conference organisers can apply to Bellberry for funding to create or enhance participant-centric programs to enable the participant voice to be represented and heard at their meetings. The ultimate aim of this grant funding program is to improve research by embracing participant perspectives. 

Applicants can apply for a grant up to a maximum of $20,000 – applications for 2024 close on 15 March 2024. 

Visit the link here for the Program guidelines and Application form

In June 2023, Bellberry gathered experts together from across the globe in Adelaide, South Australia, to examine how to achieve better outcomes for patients when it comes to accelerated access to potentially beneficial medicines.

Tune into Bellberry’s latest podcast episode, ‘Tackling A Wicked Problem’, to hear firsthand from some of the attendees of this International Scientific Congress.

Click on the link below or search for ‘Bellberry’ in your favourite podcast platform.

In June 2023 Bellberry were delighted to host the “Towards a Coordinated Approach for Managing Accelerated Patient Access to Potentially Beneficial Medicines: Balancing Patient, Regulator, Health Technology Assessment (HTA), Payer, and Other Stakeholder Needs” international workshop in Adelaide.

This event brought together over a global delegation from over 20 nations including the US, UK, Europe, Canada, Singapore, and Japan from a range of stakeholder groups to discuss the issue of a gap in funded access to potentially beneficial medicines where there has been accelerated regulatory approval.  All aspects of the workshop programme were overseen by a Scientific Committee and were chaired by E/Prof Lloyd Sansom.

The workshop was followed by a one-day open day meeting where the deliberations and conclusions of the expert panel presented and debated amongst a wider local audience.  The workshop outcome was the development of an agreed statement of good practice, guidelines on approaches and a clear agreement on required next steps.

The full report from the workshop can now be viewed here, key themes from the report were integrated into a meeting statement that can be viewed here.

2024 promises to be an exciting year at Bellberry as we celebrate our 20 year anniversary. Please visit our Anniversary homepage for details of some of the exciting activities and initiatives planned to mark this special milestone, including our monthly podcast series.

Business will of course be as usual with HREC meetings being held every Wednesday throughout the year.

Please contact us at bellberry@bellberry.com.au if you have any submission queries or for any other general queries.

HREC meetings are held every Wednesday for the duration of 2024

The Quality Update for December can be found here.

Content includes updates to some of our Bellberry Application (BA) and Monitoring of Approved Research (MAR) documentation, electronic HREC indemnity reminders, regulatory updates and more.

Please contact the Quality team at quality@bellberry.com.au if you have any queries regarding these updates.

To tune into episode 3, ‘Chasing The Money’, click on the link below or search for Bellberry wherever you get your podcasts.

Happy listening! More episodes to come in early 2024.

We’re delighted to announce that Bellberry is the gold sponsor for the upcoming ACTA Clinical Symposium 2023 taking place on 27 – 29 November in Melbourne. As a not-for-profit organization dedicated to maintaining ethical standards in human research, we’re proud to support an event that brings together the best minds in clinical research.

The Symposium  brings together a broad range of Australian and International experts in the design and conduct of clinical trials, clinical data, healthcare funding, policy and regulation, healthcare service delivery, health information technology and patient advocacy. It will explore key themes, including research ethics, patient-centric innovations, and regulatory compliance.

We look forward to seeing you there!

HREC meetings are held every Wednesday for the duration of 2024

Sociologist, lawyer and Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, Dr Michelle King, was yesterday awarded the Bellberry Travel Grant at the Australasian Association of Bioethics and Health Law (AABHL) Conference 2023 in Brisbane.

The travel grant will assist Dr King to present a paper in Chicago at the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IASSIDD) World Congress in August next year.

Dr King said her work focuses on defining inclusion in research for people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities and how this inclusion is mediated by research ethics committees and rules.

“Research about the experiences and perspectives of people with profound intellectual disabilities is difficult,” said Dr King.

“Most research work is done with the people around the person with profound intellectual disabilities, like parents, support workers, or health professionals.

“Including someone with profound intellectual disabilities in research can also be made more difficult by research ethical clearance processes and committees.

“My paper considers the question of ‘nothing about us, without us’ for people who may not be able to include themselves,” she said.

Dr King is also the parent of an adult daughter with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities.

“I greatly value the opportunity to travel to the IASSIDD World Congress to share my results on ethics, decision-making and profound intellectual disabilities,” she said.

Bellberry’s CEO, Kylie Sproston congratulated Dr King on her ground-breaking research saying Bellberry was excited to support Dr King with a travel grant.

“This year marks 20 years of Bellberry and we are proud to partner with the 2023 AABHL Conference to offer a travel grant of up to $2000 to an early career or higher degree researcher to assist with travel to present research related to research ethics,” said Ms Sproston.

For further information please contact Alison Rogers on 0488 995 868 or alison@livingstories.net.au

Bellberry are proud to be the principal sponsor of the ASCEPT (Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists) annual scientific meeting taking place on 20 – 23 November in Sydney.

The COVID outbreak has shown that major scientific advances enabled the world to rapidly adopt cutting edge solutions to the global pandemic and highlighted the very best of our basic, clinical and public health work. The 2023 ASCEPT ASM will look to the next transformational ideas in the pharmacology and toxicology research space.

We look forward to seeing you there!

https://www.asceptasm.com/