The partnership of a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary academic thought leadership group of trialists with a non‑profit Academic Research Organization was described in 2010 for the ARO CPC Clinical Research (CPC) and the ATLAS Group (Goldenberg NA et al., Improving academic leadership and oversight in large industry-sponsored clinical trials: the ARO-CRO model. Blood 2010).  ATLAS partners with CPC to take advantage of CPC’s distinguishing strengths as an ARO: including  management of independent trial oversight committees (e.g., Executive, Steering, and Data and Safety Monitoring), end point adjudication, imaging and biomarker core labs, endpoint quality assurance training and monitoring, and independent validation of statistical analyses, as warranted. CPC has a long track record of trial leadership and management experience in vascular disease and antithrombotic agents, and CPC physician- and methodology-leaders also bring to the ATLAS partnership additional regulatory experience and expertise, to assist Sponsors and ATLAS colleagues with regulatory agencies interactions. In this way, CPC as an ARO complements and augments the functions performed by a CRO contracted by an industry Sponsor, or the industry Sponsor itself. CPC also performs a key function in establishing and maintaining consulting agreements with each of the ATLAS members, and in executing master consulting agreements and master confidentiality/non-disclosure agreements with Sponsors on behalf of all ATLAS members, including invoicing Sponsors and processing payments received from Sponsors for activities performed by ATLAS members. ATLAS is intended to represent a ‘one stop shop’ for industry partners providing harmonized advice from a broad panel of experts. Moreover, the partnership of the ATLAS Group with CPC allows the academic thought leadership group to engage more efficiently in program/trial design and trial oversight, as well as strategic planning across multiple drug development programs.

With the formation of the Pedi-ATLAS group, a deliberate “twinning” was established with the adult-focused ATLAS group to provide infant-to-elderly development program expertise and coordination for antithrombotic trials. Furthermore, two of the founding members of Pedi-ATLAS, Drs. Goldenberg and Bonaca, are also members of the ATLAS Group, and convene the two groups in combined meetings on both a standing semi-annual basis and in interim ad hoc meetings as needs arise.