BRANY Acquires UM’s CITI Program

(Lake Success, NY) - BRANY (Biomedical Research Alliance of NY), a national organization providing support services to research institutions and investigators in a wide variety of therapeutic areas, medical devices, biologic and diagnostic trials, announced today its acquisition of the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative Program (CITI), a leading provider of online research ethics education to the research community.   “With roots steeped in academic research and advancement, both BRANY and CITI share the distinction of excellence in human subject protection,” says Brian Currie, MD, chairman of the board of BRANY, representing Montefiore Medical Center, one of BRANY’s owner institutions. “We look forward to maintaining the CITI mission and legacy.”   “The University of Miami, since its founding of CITI, has remained committed to fostering the development of this program, making it an international center of excellence in online research ethics education and training,” says Thomas LeBlanc, PhD, executive vice president and provost of University of Miami. “We are pleased to see the continuation of this commitment with BRANY, and we look forward to continued collaborations with the CITI program, BRANY and its owner institutions.”   Like BRANY, which was founded by four leading academic research institutions, CITI’s founding in 2000 started as a collaboration between academic and commercial research centers from around the US.  Experts from the original 10 organizations comprised the first group of content developers for the CITI Program. The initial focus was on human subjects research (HSR) protections in biomedicine and social sciences. CITI has since expanded to include course content in good clinical practice (GCP), the responsible conduct of research (RCR), biosafety and biosecurity, clinical trial billing compliance, conflicts of interest, disaster planning for the research enterprise and information privacy and security, to name a few.   “As the leading provider of research support services to hospitals, academic medical centers and investigators, BRANY continues to demonstrate its commitment to improving research efficiency and quality through education,” says Joseph Lhota, senior vice president, vice dean and chief of staff at New York University School of Medicine, another founding member of BRANY.   “CITI’s mission to provide educational opportunities to the entire research team fosters research integrity and promotes the public’s trust in the global research enterprise.   The CITI Program’s commitment to quality research practice is in perfect alignment with BRANY’s mission of providing quality service to the research community,” says Paul Braunschweiger, PhD, director of the CITI program.   The CITI Program, at www.citiprogram.org is used by thousands of subscribing academic institutions, government agencies, and commercial organizations worldwide to train more than a million researchers annually.     About BRANY   BRANY is the leading provider of research support services to hospitals, academic medical centers and investigators. BRANY's services, which are designed to improve research efficiency and quality, include an array of outsourced clinical trial start up services such as a IRB review, contracting and Medicare coverage analysis.BRANY was the first IRB in New York to be accredited by the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP).   Through its consulting division, the HRP Consulting Group, BRANY provides institutions human subject protection and research compliance consulting services.   BRANY is also the developer of Protocol Builder®, a protocol writing tool for investigator-initiated research.   Founded in 1998, BRANY is owned by academic medical centers - NYU School of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Northwell Health - is an expedited, end-to-end solution for clinical trials.   More information at www.brany.com.     About CITI   The Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI Program) at the University of Miami is the leading provider of online research ethics education courses and materials. CITI’s web-based training materials serve millions of learners at academic institutions, government agencies, and commercial organizations in the U.S. and around the world.   More information at www.citiprogram.org.