CEO Gary Hughes confirms client support for ongoing trials during the pandemic.

Supporting Your Clinical Trials During COVID-19

During the global pandemic, CEO Gary Hughes writes to confirm uninterrupted support for ongoing clinical trials as well as a dedicated taskforce to assure continuity.

Gary Hughes is co-founder and CEO of Teckro. He is an entrepreneur who has successfully launched two global companies in Ireland – more than a decade ahead of the start-up boom and withstanding the dot-com bust.

Combining a passion for design with love of technology, Gary is influenced by Dieter Rams’ principles of good design. He co-founded Teckro with a motivation to make an impact and the belief that clinical research needs to be simpler and more accessible.

Gary started his career in the budding e-learning market in the mid 1990s, first working at Dublin-based Interactive Services as a graphic designer. Gary later relocated to the US to gain international experience. Here he worked as a program manager for Microsoft on their Step-by-Step Interactive Training programs before moving back to Ireland to join an early stage start-up based in Galway as one of its first employees. It was a formative experience that led Gary to start Firecrest Clinical in 2001 along with Nigel Hughes and Jacek Skrzypiec.

At its inception, Firecrest was an e-learning solution that provided online training for healthcare professionals. By 2004, Firecrest evolved into an investigator portal – one of the first site-facing solutions in the market. In 2011, after a decade, Gary and the Firecrest management team accepted an acquisition offer from ICON, one of the world’s largest clinical research organizations.

Post-acquisition, Gary remained with ICON for a couple of years as Executive Vice President. In this time, he gained a greater appreciation for the scale of the problems facing modern drug development processes. Inspired for a second time, Gary, along with co-founders Nigel and Jacek, started Teckro in 2015. Today, Teckro has more than 150 employees across Europe and the United States, with ambitious future growth plans.

CEO & Co-Founder

Gary Hughes

I would like to assure all of our clients that Teckro is well prepared to support your clinical trials, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I understand that you are challenged with restricted movement of CRAs and patients, and that research staff are under pressure to treat those afflicted with the coronavirus (COVID-19). You can rest assured that Teckro will do everything in our power to support your trials without interruption. Whether you have protocol amendments, need to change user access, or have users who need support from our helpdesk, our staff will be available.

At Teckro, we have reviewed our existing pandemic plan, and we are updating as necessary. Like everyone, we are closely monitoring advice from local health and government authorities in all of the countries where we have staff. We have a dedicated task force that meets daily to plan and assign actions and to keep senior leadership current on any developments.

As with many businesses, we have taken the precaution to suspend all non-essential travel. Our global staff are working remotely from their homes until April 10, at which point we will reassess the situation. To preserve business continuity, we have core teams identified as well as second-in-command personnel for major functions, should the need arise.

From a product standpoint, Teckro software is built on a hybrid infrastructure between top-tier Equinix data center and AWS. Our Equinix-based infrastructure is fully redundant on each layer starting from power, connectivity, and throughout the application and database layers. Our AWS-based infrastructure is deployed across three availability zones for high redundancy. Teckro has robust DR procedures to allow a move from Equinix to AWS as required, which is tested on a regular basis.

This is a global crisis that knows no boundaries of nations, races or beliefs. United as one, we will overcome this situation. I hope that you, your families and your employees stay in good health. If there is anything I or my staff can do to help you at this time, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

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March 24, 2020

Supporting Your Clinical Trials Without Interruption During COVID-19 Crisis

A letter from our CEO to Teckro customers

Gary Hughes

CEO & Co-Founder