CureAccelerator Final Deliverable

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Helping CureAccelerator increase
awareness and commitment on
repurposing

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Contents
1. Introduction…............................................................... 4
2. Project goals ................................................................ 7
3. Solution approach ....................................................... 9
4. Part 1: Boosting the platform..................................... 11
5. Part 2: Social Media and online marketing strategy... 41
6. Part 3: Leveraging the existing network..................... 65
7. Final recommendations ........................................... 103
8. Attachment 1: Survey results...................................

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Introduction
The CureAccelerator program was created by Cures Within Reach (CWR) to
encourage repurposing research among the scientific community. The program’s
objective is to leverage the capabilities and power of existing treatments and drugs,
that have been originally designed to treat a different disease.
The platform was launched in June 2015 and since then has successfully attracted
750 active members, including researchers, clinicians and funders. The aim of the
Organization is to reach 2,000 active members by the end of 2016, as well as to
raise awareness about the platform and its benefits; increase its usability, and
ultimately build a strong community where research and funds are paired to find
cures for more than 7,000 diseases.

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Introduction
Due to time, resources and funding constraints, the organization has not been
systematic in its efforts regarding outreach and communication. This has made it
difficult for CWR to raise awareness about the platform and the importance of
repurposing, especially because repurposing is not a traditional “keyword” by which
research is defined.
Although there are a considerable number of users in the platform, the organization’s
members don’t necessarily see themselves as a community, and the activities on the
platform are not enough to generate a sustainable and strong bond between users.
There have not been enough activities or events to introduce and promote the brand
and create adequate awareness to potential subscribers, including clinicians,
researchers, and funders.
Lack of social media influence: 110 followers on LinkedIn and 446 on Twitter. (The
organization is currently creating the Facebook public page).
Lastly, the design of the web site is not as user-friendly as it could be, and does not
necessarily make it easy for people to find the information they want in a speedy way.
Current challenges CureAccelerator faces:

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Project Goals
The project is designed to help the organization build brand awareness for the
CureAccelerator platform, allowing CWR to generate high lead volume for the
repurposing program, and to increase community engagement and number of
members.
General Goal
Specific Goals:
Bring more
funders,
researchers and
clinicians to the
platform.
Create attention to
the program on
social media
(Increase followers
on relevant social
media platforms).
Create
connections
between users and
make them more
active in the
platform.
Provide
suggestions as to
how to make the
platform more
accessible and
user -friendly.
Give further
recommendations
on the future
development of
the platform .

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Solution Approach
The way the content is presented to
current and potential members, as well
as to how user-friendly, attractive and
engaging it is for all three types of users.
Social Media &
Online Marketing
Networks
Visual
Communication
How the existing
network can be used
and taken advantage of
to increase the number
of users in the platform,
as well as to bring more
awareness about the
program to the
community and
potential members.
The efforts needed to create content in social media that attracts
members to read and share what CureAccelerator has to say.

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Part 1: Boosting the Platform

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The research
The team designed four different surveys, aimed to identify how all the different users perceive the
platform, whether they though it add value to them and based on this, possible opportunities for
improvement.
Surveys sent: 446
Surveys answered: 30
Response rate: 6%
Group 1: Researchers
Surveys sent: 60
Surveys answered: 0
Response rate: 0%
Group 2: Clinicians
Surveys sent: 60
Surveys answered: 6
Response rate: 10%
Group 3: Funders
Surveys sent: 156
Surveys answered: 10
Response rate: 6%
Group 4: General user
Although the response rate was lower than expected, there are valuable responses worth analyzing and
take into account to produce recommendations for the site and the way Cures Within Reach engages
with the users.

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The research
After analyzing the results, we found that they can be classified into 6 different categories:
1. The Platform
Refers to the functional and visual elements of the platform, including
whether people find it attractive, user-friendly, functional and useful.
2. Feedback
3. Usage
4. Funding
5. Promotion
6. Outreach
Refers to the extent to which users feel the CureAccelerator program or
Cures within reach provide them with enough feedback regarding their
submissions or requests.
Refers to how much the users use the different functionalities of the
platform and to the level of awareness they have about them.
Refers to the expectations of users regarding the information the platform
provides on funding.
Refers to how people get to know about the platform, how they found out
about it and how they keep up to date with what is going on in it.
Refers to the extent to which users perceive the CureAccelerator
community to be connected to stakeholders outside of the network.
Recommendations for funding and outreach can be found on the “Network Strategy”
section of this document; and for promotion on the Social Media and Online Marketing
section .

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Platform- results
Taking into account that the platform is not even a year old, we defined that a positive score of 60% or
more was acceptable at this stage of maturity. The results below show the elements that users consider
to be working fine and those they consider could be improved*:
Visual Design 72% User Friendliness 68% Functionality 60%
Collaboration 40% Usefulness 48% Information search 56%
The look and feel of the platform is
adequate and people like it.
*based on results for the user group “researchers”
People consider the platform is easy
to use and has no complicated
features that prevent them from
accessing or using it
Users like the functionalities of the
platform so far, but would like to
have more options to collaborate,
find what they need and connect to
others.
Users manifest there is not enough
opportunity for members of the
community to collaborate between
them. Discussion rooms are seldom
used and there are no other
mechanisms to connect.
Users don’t see all the benefits of the
platform either because the
information that is posted has little
to do with their interests, or because
they cannot find what they are
looking for.
Information is not always easy to
find, there are no mechanisms for
advance searching that help
individuals refine their search and
target more specific information.

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Platform - Recommendations
1. Increase collaboration amongst users within the platform
Users manifest there is not enough opportunity for members of the
community to collaborate between them. Discussion boards are seldom used
and there are no other mechanisms users can utilize to connect.
Source: Wikipedia
There are two basic types of virtual collaboration:*
Asynchronous Synchronous
Team members are able to share information and ideas
instantaneously*.
Team members communicate without the ability to
instantly respond to messages or ideas.
Discussion boards in CureAccelerator.
Although CureAccelerator offers users the opportunity to collaborate, it does so in an Asynchronous
way, so users cannot really interact with each other as they wish they could.

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Chat Rooms
Collaboration
Groups
Chat rooms are online spaces where users communicate with one another through text
based messages*. Creating chat rooms will allow users to interact in real time, engaging in
conversations with one or more members of the community to solve questions and
inquiries. They are also great to connect people who do not know each other but can
benefit from other’s knowledge and expertise.
Source: How stuff works
Collaboration groups allow people with similar interests and ideas to share a virtual space
with other like minded people. In the CureAccelerator context, this means creating
different groups by discipline and project, so that all people involved in a specific research
can drop and drag information, post ideas, documents, papers, etc. It would also be useful
when people are co-investigating with others or for people to to ask for help from other
fellow clinicians / researchers.

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Forums
Forums are similar to discussions, but they are managed differently. While a discussion is open
whenever necessary, forums require more planning. We suggest CureAccelerator follow this
steps:
• Identify the topics that matter to users most. Some suggestions we received in the survey
were: Legal issues of repurposing, specific therapeutic areas, benefits and advantages of
repurposing, etc.
• Define list of topics and dates for at least six months.
• Designate a moderator for each forum, and someone responsible for taking notes and
writing the minutes.
• Send an email to all users with the topics and the schedule, as well as reminders of each
forum a week ahead and the day before. Include instructions on how to connect, what can
they do within the forum and who will moderate it.
• Send all participating users the minutes and publish a summary of the conclusions in the
website.

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Webinars
• An online seminar or webinar is a seminar held live on the web. The presenter will use
a PowerPoint deck and speak over the airways, and the audience can interact via voice
or through a live chat facility.
• We recommend webinars for CureAccelerator because they not only bring the
community together around a common subject, but also because they are a fantastic
way of spreading knowledge around the community. Panelists can be either registered
users of the platform or external parties invited to speak about a certain topic.
• The steps for organizing a webinar are similar to the steps for organizing forums. In this
particular case however, we would suggest to open the webinar so that people outside
the platform can access it. This will give the platform more visibility and has the
potential to attract potential users.
Source: Internet Expressions

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Users manifest there is not enough opportunity for members of the community to
collaborate between them. Discussion rooms are seldom used and there are no other
mechanisms to connect.
Chat rooms
Collaboration
groups
Forums Webinars
Frequency Permanent Permanent Once a month Four times a year
Scope All registered users All registered users
All registered
users
All registered users
and external
parties
Moderator N/A N/A
Someone from
CWR
Someone from
CWR or outside
expert

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2. Increase information visibility
Users don’t see all the benefits of the platform either because the
information that is posted has little to do with their interests, or because they
cant find what they are looking for.
To do this, we suggest the following
1. Organize information on RFP’s, projects, discussions, and public titles by
commonalities, such as disease, type of drug, specialty, field, status,
funding number, etc.
2. Create a section of “success cases,” where some of the funded research is
shown and tips on how to find a funding match.
3. Use word clouding in each category of information, to help people identify
the most common disciplines, fields of study, illnesses, etc., in the
platform.

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3. Information Search
Information is not always easy to find, there are not enough mechanisms for
advance searching that help individuals refine their search and target more
specific data.
Search features are not uniform throughout the platform, making it hard for users to find what they
want without spending too much time or giving up. To improve user experience,, we suggest making
the search function more robust by adding:
Search by Keywords: When typing a word on the “name” field, the list of results is not
clear as to where in the list or in the document does the requested word appear. We
suggest also to highlight the requested word once the list of results appears on the
screen.
Making Tags a common feature: Currently, only RPS’ and Projects have tags. We
propose expanding those tags also to the discussion board.
Allow sorting: The search option does not give the user the option to filter results by
date, relevance, or alphabetically. This means people have to go through all the results
to find what they need.

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Feedback - Results and recommendations
Feedback refers to the extent to which users feel the CureAccelerator program or Cures Within Reach
provide them with enough feedback regarding their submissions or requests.
When users do not receive timely feedback or not feedback at all, their engagement with the process,
the platform, and the organization in general drops.
Users would like more feedback from the organization regarding the submissions, timeframes
and results of the evaluation process CWR performs before publishing projects.
Opportunity for
improvement
Get them further involved
Allow people to blog and share their experiences and knowledge within the platform. Pick people to blog once
a month and provide links to such blogs in the newsletter.
Enhance your “customer experience”
Once a user submits the required documents, send him an email explaining what is next in the process, how
long will it take, who the person to contact is in case of doubts or to provide updates.
Publish a diagram of the process a project goes through from the moment it is submitted until it is approved,
including estimated times.
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Be a partner
While its clear that the role CWR has in the process is to curate the projects submitted by researchers and
clinicians, it is important that it positions itself as a partner in the process, rather than just an auditor or a
curator. Users need to feel there is a partnership between them and the Organization.
2
3
Solutions

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Usage - Results and recommendations
Usage refers to how much the users know about the different features the platform has, and the
opportunities they provide, as well as the level of use of such features.
No platform is completely successful unless its users know they can execute certain activities within it,
either to make it more useful to them or to access information or other users faster / better.
Create an instructional video on how to use the platform, showing all the features it has and what the
advantages of using them are for the members.
To increase the usage of the platform and make sure it is utilized in its full potential, we suggest the
following:
Include a “tips and tricks” section in the newsletter, providing instructions on how to use certain features
in a simple and straightforward way.
Include a “Did you know” section in the newsletter, giving people information an what the benefits are
to become a certified clinician/researcher and how to do it in the platform. The objective is to increase
the number of certified members within the platform.
Once other features such as collaboration groups, webinars, chatrooms and forums are introduced in the
platform, include instructions and videos about these features. Create a resource repository within the
platform so that people can access this material at any time.

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Best Practice
CureAccelerator does a good job at visual design and user-friendliness. However,
based on the research we have conducted, we found that there are still some
functions that need to be better enhanced in order to boost the platform:
• It can be more convenient for users to find the information they are looking for.
• It can provide users with the opportunity to participate in a of activities, and
discussion amongst users can be more active
• Create a better balance between supply and demand of funding.
• It seems like the website is the only source to get to know about the
• organization. It is advisable to create links to CureAccelerator’s
• social media sites on the platform to increase traffic to the platform.
In order to better build an interactive and sustainable drug-
repurposing ecosystem and robust community, we found and
did research on the websites that could serve as a good
example to learn and take ideas from.

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Best Practice Example
Information retrieval
ability
Grants.Gov:
www.grants.gov
Interactive
Community
American Mathematical Society:
www.ams.org
Crowdfunding
Experiment:
www.experiment.com
Traffic generation
between sites
National Science Foundation:
http://www.nsf.gov

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Best Practice - Information retrieval ability
Information retrieval (IR) is the activity
of obtaining resources relevant to an
information need from a collection of
information resources. *
The ability to find and retrieve relevant
information has always been important,
whether it is a physical process of manually
sifting through filing cabinets or, more
commonly now, a machine based process.
Locating and retrieving the right
information quickly can provide on-line
platforms with an advantage.
* Taken from Belkin, N. J., & Croft, W. B. (1992). Information
filtering and information retrieval: Two sides of the same coin?.
Communications of the ACM, 35(12), 29-38.

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Best Practice - Information retrieval ability
In this case, we chose http://www.grants.gov as a good example to learn from.
Grants.gov is an E-Government initiative operating under the governance of
the Office of Management and Budget. Under the President's Management
Agenda, the office was chartered to deliver a system that provides a centralized
location for grant seekers to find and apply for federal funding opportunities.
In order to make it easier for grant seekers to search for different sources of
funding, Grants.gov has created a detailed filter bar which contains various
categories related to different funding to help users narrow down their choices.

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Best Practice－Information retrieval ability
• Offer clear keyword(s) searching.
• Give broad search criteria, which
makes it easy for users to look for
the resources they want , even if
they don’t have detailed
information about their search.
• Show the exact quantity of
funding sources in each categories.
• Allow users to specify the search
by “funding number” for each
source of funding.
The filter bar of Grants.Gov
How to create an efficient searching
bar

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• Learning from best practice
Best Practice-Information retrieval ability
Current outlook of
CureAccelerator’s
search engine.
Creating specific tags
for different
researches.
Adding key words
searching
Creating classification
for different types of
illness
Based on funding
amount, divide
researches into
various categories

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Best Practice－Interactive Community
Interactive community means that the activities being
held on the platform create opportunities
for users to communicate with each other and
enlarge the organization’s social impact.
Building a robust on-line community can promote
interaction between users which produces beneficial
results for all parties:
• Creates Synergy for better progress.
• Provides a valuable platform for feedback.
• Allows like minded individuals to share and
exchange ideas. *
• Creates a sense of common purpose and vision.*
The American Mathematical Society does a good job
at building robust collaborative on-line activities.
These activities not only promote research that is
posted on its website, but also foster an awareness of
the discipline and its connections to other disciplines
and everyday life.
*Taken from O'Murchu, I., Breslin, J. G., & Decker, S. (2004, August). Online Social and Business Networking
Communities. In ECAI Workshop on Application of Semantic Web Technologies to Web Communities (Vol. 107).

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Best Practice -Interactive Community
AMS is a robust research
community To further the
interests of mathematical
research, scholarship and
education, serving the
national and international
community through
publications, meetings,
advocacy and other
programs.*
WWW.AMS.ORG
Robust collaborative on-line
Activities
Chatrooms
for specific
topic
On-line
forums
Member
Webinars
Cross-
discipline
Program
Publication
*Taken from www.Ams.org

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Best Practice - Interactive Community
Member Webinars
• The meetings and conferences of the AMS provide members with an
environment that is stimulating, rewarding, well-organized, and affordable.
Members have the opportunity to network informally with colleagues.
Cross-discipline programs
• Through this feature , members can explore mathematics in other places,
learn more about educational issues, find a research fellowship, and
increase diversity in the mathematical sciences.
Publication
• AMS serves the active community by publishing books that further their
researchers’ projects, awareness, education, and the profession while
generating resources that support other Society programs and activities.
Chatrooms for specific topics
• Connect people who are interested in the same field
• Create Q&A interaction among users.
• Promote deeper discussions.

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Best Practice－Crowdfunding
Usually, the investment for medical
research is a large amount of money.
Among 895 total users in the platform,
less than 10% are funders. Based on
this situation, we recommend a
supplemental solution-crowdfunding,
because it can scatter the financial
pressure on single funders and double
marketing and media exposure.
Experiment.com is an excellent
example as a platform for funding
scientific discoveries.
If CureAccelerator.org plans to
launch this function, Experiment.com
is a good place to learn.

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Experiment.com
The Public Funding Model
Backers fund scientists directly, so there is no middleman or overhead
involved (compared to 50-60% when receiving a grant at a university).
Experiment.com is an all-or-nothing funding platform. This means the project
must reach the funding target, or no one's pledges are charged.
Project Review & Approval
Anyone can propose a new experiment, as long as the results can be shared
openly.
All projects are rigorously reviewed, provided feedback, and scientifically
approved by the Experiment.com team.
Scientific Impact
Scientists share progress, data, and results directly with backers. Many of
these results are widely available as open access and citable. As a backer,
you'll be able to see how much of a scientific impact you've made. There have
been 20 published papers in scientific journals through funded experiments!

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Beautiful& attractive outlook
Design of every project
Clearly category tags
Detailed/ specific/ visualized status
Information about every project

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Lab notes
Scientists share
their process and
findings through
Experiment’s open
lab notebook.
Funders can follow
research
developments.

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Best Practice - Traffic Generation between sites
Social media is another great place to generate
active participation in organizations. Networks
like Linkedin and Facebook give companies the
ability to communicate directly with their
audience from different perspectives and build
a rapport that exceeds anything websites can
offer them.*
Traffic Generation between sites means creating
entries in the organization’s social media
platforms to increase the visitor flow between
all sites. Through official on-line
platforms, users can go easily to social media
sites to get detailed and updated news, and the
other way round. This builds a reciprocal circle
among sites and allows CureAccelerator to learn
about people through social media.
*Taken from Yoo, Y., & Alavi, M. (2001). Media and group cohesion: Relative influences on
social presence, task participation, and group consensus. MIS quarterly, 371-390.

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Best Practice -Traffic Generation between sites
NSF uses a variety of social media tools to share news about research NSF funds, funding
opportunities offered by the foundation, job openings at NSF and more. It creates a special
page to post different links to its social media platforms using clear categories. Additionally,
it also provides links to download its apps.

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Assorted
links to
different social
media
platforms
Different classification of links
Within the platform.
Best Practice－Traffic Generation between sites

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Best Practice Section
Information retrieval ability Boosting the platform
Interactive Community Networks
Crowdfunding Social Media& On-line Marketing
Traffic generation between sites Social Media& On-line Marketing
Further details about each best practice can be found in different sections of this
document, as follows:
Best Practice - Recommendations

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Part 2: Social Media & Online Marketing
Strategy

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Social Media Marketing Strategy
1. Build community around drug repurposing and medical research
A brand community from a customer-experiential perspective is a fabric of relationships
in which the user is situated. Crucial relationships include those between the user and
the Cure Accelerator, between the user and the firm, between the customer and the
platform in use, and among fellow users. We can strengthen brand community by
facilitating shared customer experiences which means social media platform and online
video marketing.
2. Driving Conversions
Conversion marketing is the act of converting site visitors into paying customers. In this
case, it is critical to drive the platform visitors into users. One of smartest reasons to use
social media is for the potential boost it can have to your conversion efforts. Whether
you’re looking to drive sales, increase leads or simply drive people to action, conversions
are an easily traceable goal in the realm of social media.
3. Increase pubic awareness
It’s important to stay relevant. If customers aren’t aware of your brand and what it stands
for, your business may be spinning its wheels. When customers are aware of your brand
and interact with it on different social media sites, they are more likely to recommend it
to their friends by liking posts on Facebook and retweeting you on Twitter.
Goal

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Part1: Online Video
Video is the future of content marketing. That is, if it's not the here and now. Various studies show
more than half of companies are already making use of the medium – a figure that's predicted to rise as
more and more realize the possibilities.
Objectives:
• Brand awareness and
engagement: Helps Cure
Accelerator measure users’
knowledge of its existence,
at the same time, bring
their attention by making
them feel involved. (View,
subscribes, comment…etc.)
• Viral sharing: An
commercial video gets
more immediate
attention and views
compare to pictures
or blogs.
• Post product videos and
demos: An example would
be how to use the Cure
accelerator platform
tutorial. Or provide an
Information video to
explain how does the Cure
accelerator work.
• Create a video series
to share: Compare to
one-time commercial, a
video series will bring
consistency and
increase customer
loyalty.

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Part1: Online Video
Video is the future of content marketing. That is, if it's not the here and now. Various studies show
more than half of companies are already making use of the medium – a figure that's predicted to rise as
more and more realize the possibilities.
√ Determine ownership of video execution: You can create the video by using your
employees, or hire a video production agency.
√ Determine distribution channels: Create Youtube channels, blogs, publish the video on
different social media.
√ Create social strategy for promotion: Before release the videos, creates posters,
promotes on social media platform and weekly emails. The best time is to start promote
the video at least three weeks before the releasing date.
√ Get users include researchers, clinicians, funders, partners, and influencers involved in
video creation: Creating surveys if possible before start on the videos. In the survey they
can be only few questions like “What would you like to know the most about Cure
accelerator?”
ActionItem

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Online video Plan A
There are few B2C marketers that are looking ahead
to virtual reality experiences to share content. So
video is the best way to appeal to as many of a user’s
senses at one time as possible. Good video tells a
story better than any other medium by using both
sight and sound senses to help viewers process a
message.
Drug repurposing is still an unfamiliar word to most
of the people. This video can simply be both people
who don’t know about drug repurposing and
professionals in the medical field talk about what is
the meaning of this word to them separately. This
video production can be low budget, easy to control
and target at people who don’t know much about
drug repurposing.
“Old Ways to Fight New” Campaign (3min)
Example: “Like a Girl” Campaign
The Always “Like a Girl” campaign video
stood out on multiple levels. A B2C video,
obviously, it appeals empathizes with the
target audience and empowers through
education and insight.
Video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjW
YDTs

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Online video Plan B
This type of video is a very good marketing tool in the sense
that positively presented information leaves viewers with
the kind of impression that keeps them coming back. It’s
similar to documentary video, but the different is you can
manipulate the story line. Factual and anecdotal storytelling
are also very well suited to corporate anniversary videos
that seek to generate excitement on the part of employees
and other target audiences, including users.
The content of the video can be a recent event associated or
promoted by Cure accelerator like the “5th Annual Drug
Repositioning, Repurposing and Rescue Conference”; a
research progress start from the platform, which has a
storyline, a peak and an ending; or even a patient’s life after
using the repurposing drug. The Mockumentary video may
be not very subjective, but it is also low budget, don’t need
many staff, only required simple equipment, and requires
less time compare to a documentary video.
“Second Chance in Life” Mockumentary Video
Examples: Secrets of the Superbrands
Alex Riley thinks he's immune to brands. When it
comes to fashion, technology and food brands he
just goes for the cheapest and what works for him.
So how did that pair of Adidas trainers get in his
wardrobe? With the help of marketers, brain
scientists and exclusive access to the world of the
super brands Alex sets out to find out why we buy
them, trust them, even idolize them. Program
created by the BBC
Video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd7lfcnlb9c

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Online video Plan C
“Why Drug Repurposing?” Animated Video(3min)
Example: “Girl Effect” Animated Video
This organization “Girl Effect” aims to stop child
marriage, help young girls to live a healthy, safe
lives so they can grow up to be a healthy woman.
“CARE” has been working in the poorest
communities in over 72 countries for 65 years. The
animated video successfully boost their public
awareness in a very short period of time.
Video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs
Animated explainer videos are increasingly becoming
popular. They get the message across in a simple and
quick way by allowing the producer to focus 100% on
representing the content that matters while stripping
away any non-relevant detail.
Animated videos are also a great way to compare
and highlight different types of products. They also
allow you to reduce complex topics to simple,
friendly visuals and emphasize character expressions.
In this case, we can use animated video to create a
info-graphic commercial in order to answer two
questions for the audience: “what is drug
repurposing?” and “who is Cure accelerator?”

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Online Video: Measurement
You can find robust metrics across three kinds of reports in YouTube Analytics:
• Earnings reports (including estimated earnings and ad performance reports)
• Watch-time reports (including watch time, views, traffic sources, and audience retention
reports
• Engagement reports(including subscribers and annotations reports)
Key Metrics

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Part2: LinkedIn
• Brand awareness and engagement: On Linkedin, it is more easily to get
attentions and connections from the target audience actively compare to
YouTube, twitter or Facebook.
• Share a mix of relevant links, blog posts, and engaging content: Linkedin
company page
• Promote upcoming events (online) : At least post three times when
promoting an event. Not only on the company page, you can also publish this
in other relative professional groups. The “5th Annual Drug Repositioning,
Repurposing and Rescue Conference” would be a good start in this case.
• Engage with influencers: Reply the comment, answer questions and
actively reach out to other drug repurposing groups or networks.
Objective:
LinkedIn company pages are essential. Not just for brand visibility, but also for building
and sustaining a useful community around your products and services.

50
Part 2: LinkedIn
√ Encourage employee participation: If you
want to build a good looking and professional
Linkedin page, especially at the beginning of
building it, almost every employee needs to:
1. Creates Linkedin profile.
2. Put Cure Accelerator in their profile and
match it with their working experience. (In this
case, when people search online for “Cure
accelerator”, they can easily track down to
them.)
3. Link to the company page
4. Encourage them to comment or like the
important organizatonal posts.
√ Monitor and participate in Q&A: Using the
analytic tools to check the views and
subscribes every 30-40 minutes. This can help
you to find more suitable groups or networks
that can bring the most awareness to your
brand.
√ For the platform users, researchers, clinicians
and funders, let them link their LinkedIn page
to the home page.
Action Item:
√ Create and join relevant groups: Drug
repurposing, Medical field or even medical
schools. Broad networking brings great
awareness.

51
Part 2: LinkedIn
Updates:
A table
showing the
most recent
updates and
the following
data
KeyMetrics
The Analytics tab provides companies with metrics and trends about their Company Page.
Company Page administrators can view rich data which divided into specific sections: Updates,
Followers, and Visitors. More detail please go to “LinkedIn Help – Company Page”.

52
Part 2: LinkedIn
Followers:
provides
information on
where followers
are coming from,
their
demographics,
trends, and
competitive
comparisons
KeyMetrics

53
Part 2: LinkedIn
Visitors:
The visitors
section contains
information on
visitors and
viewers of your
page.
KeyMetrics
*Taken from LinkedIn Help
** Taken from Wikipedia
*** Taken form StrategyMarket

54
Part 3: Facebook
Objective:
• Promote upcoming events and online
events: Take “5th Annual Drug Repositioning,
Repurposing and Rescue Conference” as an
example, make it sounds like you are inviting
a friend about this exciting event. “Hey, we
have this exciting conference here, and I’m
sure you will like it.”
• Engage with influencers: we suggest
organizations to put personality into their
Facebook page: Be consistent with this
personality and casual when replying, post
or comment.
For example, CureAccelerator, as a drug-
repurposing platform, can be a doctor who
loves animals, care about patient’s health
and is passionate about his job.

55
Part 3: Facebook
Objective:
Brand awareness and engagement: The major difference between Facebook
and LinkedIn is the tone you use. For Linkedin, you need to sound like you
sitting at your office. However, when it comes to Facebook, it feels like you
are lying at your sofa and messaging with your friends.
Lead generation or customer acquisition: Same with the LinkedIn,however
the difference will be you will have a closer look to your target audience on
Facebook.
Share a mix of relevant links, blog posts, and engaging content: For Facebook
company page, we always recommend them to create a blog and you can
simply post anything on your Facebook page from the blog. Also you can
post news, interesting facts in the drug field, or videos.

56
Part 3: Facebook
Action Item:
√ Set up sponsored posts and ads: Go to
www.facebook.com/advertising and fill out
the click the Create an Ad button. These ads
are very similar to Google ads. The one key
difference is that you can get very specific as
to whom you want your ads to be displayed to.
They will give you an “estimated reach” to tell
you how many people meet the criteria you
set up.
√ Set up Facebook tabs that sync to your
marketing automation platform.
√ Set up Facebook link on the Cure
Accelerator home page.

57
Part 3: Facebook
Key Metrics:
Google Analytics can be used, but
Facebook provides Insight. You
should monitor this regularly. It
will tell you how many new Likes
you received, how many
unsubscribes and information on
engagement. You can track the
engagement against what you
where doing to see what works
and what doesn’t.

58
Part 3: Facebook
Suggestions on business posting:
1. Be fun. Use interactive posts. Ask questions. Combine with
the personality we suggested in the objectives above.
2. Use videos – people like them. Be sure to embed them
instead of sending the user off to YouTube.com. You don’t
want them to leave your page if you can help it.
4. Grow you email list with Facebook. Add the link for users
to follow your email list at the end of every post.
5. Tie your posts back to the Cure accelerator website. (At
the end of each post.)
6. Use full links when linking to other sites. For Twitter you
use abbreviated URLs, but on Facebook, with full links.
9. Short posts (less than 80 characters) seem to work better
than longer posts. On Facebook, people rarely read a
random post carefully, because their attention time is even
shorter compare to LinkedIn or YouTube.
10. Photos and Videos get the most attention, followed by
links, followed by status updates with questions.

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Part 4: Weekly Email
Objective:
• To inform: Email newsletters circulated
within a company are used to distribute
information intended for effected employees
in the company. At the same time, keep the
users updated.
• To reduce email overload: Instead of
sending multiple notices, announcements, or
acknowledgments to various users and
employee groups, a company can make use
of email newsletters as a more efficient
distribution of information. b
• Provide external narrative: Both users and
employees have their own families, friends,
and social circles. So explaining why
companies do things and giving them an
easy way to be proud and spread the word,
can be a very strong catalyst for word-of-
mouth.
• To create consistency: Aside from
distributing relevant information for
everyone in a company, email newsletters
can also be used as tools to encourage
camaraderie among employees. At the same
time, always remind the users of Cure
accelerator’s existence.

60
Acition Item:
√ Format design: Constant Contact, IContact,
GetResponse and others specialize in helping
you to send professional looking emails, with
graphics and videos. They help you track how
many people respond and open your
newsletters and handle things like
unsubscribing.
√ Add social media links at the end of each
email. (Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube)
√ Keep them updated: Feature a project,
feature a user/organization, announce any new
RFPs or upcoming deadlines, try to talk about
some match that’s already been made (success),
and give current stats. 1-3 times a week.
√ Less is more: Making the content simply and
solid. You don’t need to post lots of things like
on social media. The most important event or
announce comes first.

61
Key Metrics:
1. Click through Rate: The percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links
contained in a given email. Use Hubspot to measure it.
2.Bounce Rate: The percentage of your total emails sent that could not be successfully
delivered to the recipient's inbox.
3. List Growth Rate: The rate at which your email list is growing.
4. Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate: The percentage of email recipients who clicked on a “share
this” button to post email content to a social network, and/or who clicked on a “forward to a
friend” button.
Taken from: Hubspot.com

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Suggested Tools:
1. Hubspot (Clickthrough rate, bounce rate and list growth rate):
Taken from: Hubspot.com

63
Suggested Tools:
2. Litmus (Clickthrough rate, bounce rate, list growth rate and sharing rate):
Taken from: Litmus.com

64
Suggested Tools:
3.Mailjet (Clickthrough rate, bounce rate, list growth rate and sharing rate):
Taken from: Mailjet.com

65
Part 3: Leveraging the Network

66
Introduction – what is a network?
In information technology, a network is simply a series of points or nodes interconnected by
communication paths. Networks can interconnect with other networks and contain other networks
embedded in them.
*Taken from Searchnetworking.net
** Taken from Wikipedia
*** Taken form Talifox
Networks have evolved and their reach has expanded to virtually every aspect of our personal and
professional lives:
Social Network:
Social networks are not about what you
know, but who you know. They are social
structures made up of a set of social actors
(such as individuals or organizations), sets of
dyadic ties, and other social interactions
between actors**.
Knowledge networks:
A knowledge network signifies a number of
people and resources , and the relationships
between them, that are able to capture , transfer
and create knowledge, for the purpose of creating
value***.
They recognize that nobody knows everything or
has all the resources, and therefore aim to
connect all those who can contribute in each
particular way.

67
Introduction - Benefits of knowledge networks*
Accelerated
Knowledge
Transfer
Giving people easier and quicker access
to relevant knowledge and other
people and resources.
Costs related to organizing,
finding and leveraging knowledge
are minimized.
Creativity
*Taken from Talifox
04
03
01
02
Costs and
Optimization
Diverse groups of self-motivated
and enthusiastic people, brought
together to pursue a common goal.
Creating, sharing and applying knowledge
between members. They allow people to
know who knows or has what.
Productivity
and Agility

68
Introduction – Components and success factors
ELEMENTS
Nodes or actors: individuals, groups or
organizations that belong to the network (in this
case, funders, clinicians and funders).
Connections: Ties that each node has with
other members of the network. Some nodes
have stronger ties than others to other
components of the network.
KEY SUCCESS FACTORS
Technology: Appropriate
platform to enable
participation; allowing people
to connect, find what they need,
collaborate and share information and resources with
others in the network.
Incentive Structure: Set of
actions and mechanisms in place to
motivate people to join the
network and actively participate in all the activities
within it.
Mix of members: Adequate
mix of members, so that
the network is
balanced and all of them see value in
belonging and actively participating. They have to be
both empowered (access to the resources and
information they need to participate) and committed
(willing to participate on a constant basis)
Reciprocity - Collaboration:
The extent to which people
within the network r
reciprocate other people’s actions, so that
there’s permanent participation and sharing within the
network.

69
Introduction – Basic network diagnosis
Understanding how these elements work and interact plays a critical role when attempting to make the most of the
network and to leverage its power so that it fulfills its intended mission.
Nodes Ties Technology
Mix of
members
Incentive
Structure
Reciprocity
Opportunitiesforimprovement

70
Demographic analysis and recommendations
446
60
60
156
79
Researcher Clinician Funder
General User Others
Based on the current demographic information
of registered users of CureAccelerator, there
are two primary characteristics need attention:
1) Overall among entire subscribers of the
platform, the numbers of members in
different groups are unbalanced.
• Researchers take the largest portion.
• The numbers of general users and
others keep in the middle.
• Clinicians and funders have the smallest
amount of people.
2) Identifications of the categories of “general
user” and “others” are unclear. Specifically,
within the group of “others,” only one
subscriber was notified as “company
representative”; and the rest 78 were left
blank.

71
Demographic analysis and recommendations
Demographics such as education, profession, occupation, and location all provide valuable information
for the platform to better understand its users and improve its functionality, so that it can offer higher-
quality service to subscribers and increase the collaboration amongst them.
Having a small number of funders can make the
platform less attractive for other types of users,
especially researchers, to actively engage in.
1
2
Having a small amount of clinicians can affect
the generation and discussion of ideas for RFPs,
project submission, and the promotion of the
platform.
3
2
Disproportion of numbers of different
user types can lead to a network
imbalance for CureAccelerator.
1
The demographic information of
CureAccelerator subscribers can be
enhanced.
Opportunity for improvement
1
Explanation
The platform cannot fully identify subscribers’
needs and design suitable services, if there are
not certain types of information such as location,
occupation, and company industry etc.
The imbalance of the current network can result
in a critical mass problem. A critical mass in this
case, is the minimal amount of members of each
group to encourage and maintain collaboration
within the platform.

72
Approach to improve demographics
Define a set of required information for all types of stakeholders
The current required information for members, leaves relatively limited space
for the platform to move when designing services. Thus, in order to improve
the quality and quantity of its offerings, and to create a more collaborative
environment; the platform could redefine the required questions or ask for
additional information. To do this, we suggest to include the following to the
minimum required questions:
Location: Add city, state and country as a requirement.
Geographical information of members can clearly show places where a
majority of members locate. This information can be decisive when
planning activities and events because:
1) holding activities and events in major locations shared by a large
number of members can help connect them and enhance their
collaboration;
2) holding activities and event in places such as top ranking universities
can attract more potential users and build the platform’s reputation and
publicity.

73
Occupation: Add defined occupational options (student, university
professor, company representative etc.) for general users and others.
Occupational information implies not only a person’s educational
background, but also his or her personal contacts. In this case, more
detailed occupational information of general users and others can help:
1) categorize these members effectively by their professional traits;
2) design activities and events that apply to more subscribers, especially
users of these two groups (for example, online discussions held by top
ranking university professors; university-based conferences that invite
medical students, etc.).
3) improve these two groups’ engagement, and increase the overall
collaboration within the community.
The current required information for member provides relatively limited space
for the platform to refer to when designing services. Thus, in order to improve
the quality and quantity of its offerings and to create a more collaborative
environment, the platform should redefine the required questions. To do this,
we suggest to include the followings to the minimum required questions:

74
The current required information for member provides relatively limited space
for the platform to refer to when designing services. Thus, in order to improve
the quality and quantity of its offerings and to create a more collaborative
environment, the platform should redefine the required questions. To do this,
we suggest to include the followings to the minimum required questions:
Company: Add general company industry options (education, pharmacy,
etc.) for all types of stakeholders as a requirement.
Information of company industry can briefly show what a company does.
Based on the current data of users, the majority of company names do
not contain key words that obviously indicate their industry types. In this
case, offering options of company industry types can help the platform:
1) categorize users by their company industries;
2) design activities and events for various purposes according to different
needs of industries (for example, receptions for pharmaceutical
companies; conferences of hot-topic disease for university professors,
etc.).
3) increase intercommunication and collaboration amongst subscribers.

75
How to leverage the network better?
Taking into account the network diagnosis and the demographics presented in the previous sections,
we have identified 5 basic strategies to leverage the power of the existing network to increase activity,
participation and collaboration within the platform:
Ties
CollaborationBalance
Incentives
Width
Number of nodes
and member mix.
Connections
between members.
“What is in it for
people”?.
Connecting to the
outside world.
Achieving results
together.

76
Balance: Number of nodes and member mix.
The network’s imbalance creates a critical mass problem, and without it, the network cannot really operate properly. It
is paramount to increase both the number of funders and clinicians; first to make it more attractive for researchers to
belong and second, to increase the chances of off label initiatives to be on the platform.
• Identify those opinion leaders that are nor registered yet. Have personal meetings with
them and create a personalized recruitment strategy.
• Identify clinicians that can be “community leaders” within the platform, based on their
reputation in the field, and on their activity and interest for repurposing. Involve them in
some of the actions defined to boost the platform, like leading webinars and forums.
• Publicize such events on the web, through the CWR webpage and other medical
publications on line. People will have to register to get into the event and the platform will
have more members and their information.
• Create campaigns for registered clinicians to become verified clinicians, so that they can
start participating more actively in the platform.
• Create campaigns for registered clinicians to become verified clinicians, so that they can
start participating more actively in the platform.
• Create opportunities for clinicians to participate and be recognized for it: Publishing
articles on the platform, directing traffic to and from CureAccelerator and the sites where
they have published.
Identify
Increase
Engage
CLINICIANS

77
Identify
Increase
• Identify where other research sites are obtaining funding from and perform a cross
analysis (which of them are in our database?).
• Identify people who have or who currently fund health related causes like hospitals,
research centers (or specific research). This can be individuals, other NPO’s, corporations,
governments, etc.
• Identify where else is funder’s money going and what is there that attracts to them.
Corporate Funders:
• For those who are looking for is exposure, create a way for them to put their dollars into
avenues that will give them either recognition from the outside, the opportunity to
increase their reputation with their primary stakeholders, and to show how they can add
value to the community.
• For those who already have funding dollars and are not really concerned with exposure,
research on who in the organization has the authority to decide the destination of such
resources and target them individually
Individual funders:
• Determine where these funders go, where are they migrating to, and why (what is it about
those other places that attract to them, and what they do to get their attention).
• Consider implementing a crowdfunding strategy, acting as the mediator organization to
bring funders and initiators together. The risks of this strategy are low and its easy to
implement:
FUNDERS

78
Increase
Benefits of crowdfunding:
• Helps to raise awareness about repurposing and the platform.
• Can give researchers more exposure, in a field where they do not normally get
published or recognized.
• Provides and avenue for researchers / clinicians to engage with their audience.
• Low cost capital and engagement from those who may be interested in find alternative
treatments for a condition (because they are affected by it, or because they know
someone who is), want to help but don’t have millions of dollars to do so.
Risks of crowdfunding:
• The most prevalent risk is funder exhaustion, when donors are reached out to multiple
times.
Government:
• Analyze the government spending records and determine what is it spending their money
on. We suggest doing this by state, to target those states where most pharmaceutical
companies are, and/or those states that are investing more on research on repurposing
and make a direct sell to those governments.
FUNDERS

79
Engage
• Define with them the kinds of illnesses or conditions they are interested in helping to
reduce. Publish in the platform the most prevalent diseases funders are keen on helping
with, and the total amount of dollars that could go to research in each particular field.
• Send this information in the newsletter to all members, in addition to any information
regarding new funders interested in funding repurposing (there is no use in having a lot of
resources if people don’t know about them).
• Every so often (frequency TBD), send funders personalized emails with summaries of all
the projects and initiatives that could interest them. Act as and advisor more than as a
broker. Create a collaboration room for both the researcher / clinician and the funder to
discuss the initiative.
Specific strategies for crowdfunding:
• To prevent funder exhaustion we recommend finding “the right crowd” by narrowing
down targets by condition or disease (partner with support groups to gather information).
• Leverage your social media presence to promote crowdfunding events.
• Partner with organizations that work at prevention and promotion (like Susan G Komen for
the cure or the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America); as well as organizations that
work at research for specific illnesses (like the Brain and Behavior research foundation or
The Children’s Heart Foundation) to target potential individual funders.
FUNDERS

80
While the platform provides a great milieu for people to look for information and connect with others, the collaboration
opportunities need to be enhanced and fostered. The objective of this strategy is to create a sense of community
amongst members, where users feel motivated to participate on a constant basis and to contact others based on their
expertise, experience with past projects, etc.
Ties: Connections between members.
Identify Introduce
Promote
Grounding
Create
ownership
Facilitate Recognize

81
Identify researchers, clinicians and funders who are interested in the same field(s) or condition(s).
Create groups within the platform for each of those fields with all the relevant members in (people
can always opt out). One actor can be part of multiple groups. If funder information cannot be
disclosed, the group can also just have researchers and clinicians or have anonymous funders.
Introduce members to each other. Send an email to members of each group with a summary of their
credentials and thanking them for their membership. Offer each group the possibility of looking at all
members profile, list of publications, current research etc.
Create the first discussion for each group and offer to be the first moderator. The goal here is to
establish in more detail the subject(s) they would be interested in discussing, related to the subject of
the whole group; as well as how would they like to start collaborating between them.
Identify
Introduce
Promote
Grounding

82
Encourage members of each group to assign a chair (can rotate) and to create a discussion agenda for
the year. This doesn’t have to be overwhelming, let them know is up to them whether they meet
once a month, once every quarter, or twice a year; the important thing is to connect them and to
create ties between them.
Give people the means to meet inside the platform, using the collaboration rooms suggested in
“boosting the platform”. Allow them also to store there the minutes of the meetings and to post any
additional documentations they regard pertinent to the discussions.
• Publish conclusions of their discussions / collaboration in the platform, available for everyone to
see. Include the main points / conclusions in the newsletter and if possible, mention successful
funding matches for a project related to that group’s field.
• At the end of the year, publicly recognize teams who have been very active. Have them publish an
article where they speak of their experience, with a list of do’s, don’t’s, what they have gained from
it, and lessons learned; for others to improve their own groups or to promote participation.
Introduce
Create
ownership
Facilitate
Recognize

83
Width: Connecting to the outside world
.
Networks do not only exist to connect members that belong to a tight close community. Sometimes, networks allow
exactly the opposite, to connect such community with others outside of it; others that can bring knowledge, resources,
connections and more power to the network. The objective of this strategy is to make the network wider, creating
connections either with other platforms that promote problem solving, outside experts, pharmaceutical companies or
all of the above.
It is an innovation marketplace that connects firms that have a challenge to be solved
(Seekers), with people who can provide solutions fro those challenges or problems
(Solvers). Once a seeker has accepted a solution, the solver is rewarded a prize.
Suggestion 1: Partner with another research – problem solving platform, like Innocentive, to leverage
the power of both networks.
What is Innocentive?

84
We can leverage the power of
this network for drug
repurposing

85
.
There are 2 ways in which CureAccelerator and Innocentive would collaborate together:
1. Innocentive offers the possibility of creating “External Challenges”, partnering with outside organizations and
redirecting seekers to their website so that they read the existing RFP’s:
Link to access external challenges within the Innocentive Platform
Link to a specific RPF in CureAccelerator, title, date, deadline and
funding available (or prize)

86
.
2. “Repost” RFP’s in Innocentive as challenges, under a specific Pavilion for CureAccelerator. The pavilion includes
information about the mission of the organization (in this case about CureAccelerator), as well as an explanation of
the kinds of challenges available for people to solve. This offers the possibility for seekers to access all the challenges
created by CureAccelerator, instead of navigating the whole database to find them.
Link to access all the pavilions within the Innocentive Platform
Link to CureAccelerator’s, Pavilion

87
.AztraZeneca is a good example of a specific Pavilion within Innocentive; and of the application of this for repurposing:
Novel Disease Indications
for AstraZeneca Clinical
Compounds

88
.AztraZeneca is a good example of a specific Pavilion within Innocentive; and of the application of this for repurposing:

89
.
Benefits of partnering with Innocentive:
Redirects solvers with the desired profile to our platform, giving CureAccelerator the opportunity to increase
the number of users, and therefore to broaden the existing community, with people who are very interested in
repurposing.
Gives CureAccelerator exposure to the more than 375k users of the innocentive community. This will help
create awareness about repurposing and about the platform itself.
Enhances solution creation and collaboration opportunities between professionals from different fields
related to a specific project. Helps people interested in drug repurposing find each other easily and leverage
the power of both platforms to achieve faster and more effective results.
Innocentive already has the required infrastructure to collaborate in teams, so if CureAccelerator were to
partner with them, those resources could also be leveraged. This could potentially reduce collaboration costs
(in this case, the costs in which the platform has to incur to enable collaboration amongst users) for
CureAccelerator, while offering users the opportunity to collaborate sooner than if the developments were
done inside the platform.

90
.
Creates a new channel to access CureAccelerator,
besides the emails from CWR and the CWR website.
This is especially important taking into account that
when searching in Google for “drug repurposing”,
“drug repositioning”, “drug repurposing services”, and
“drug repurposing companies”; CureAccelerator does
not appear as part of the search results (at least not in
the first two pages).
This means that for someone who is not a member
and is interested in either funding, or finding RFP’s or
suggesting a project; CureAccelerator will not be an
option.

91
.
CureAccelerator could offer the platform for pharmaceutical companies to post their needs for research (like
the AstraZeneca Pavilion). This could be in exchange of a fee or for free.
Alternatively, CureAccelerator could partner with Innocentive to become the “repurposing” arm of the
platform, so that they redirect pharmaceutical companies and interested solvers to CureAccelerator.
All repurposing challenges within Innocentive can contain a “repurposing” tag that allows users to find all the
repurposing challenges within the platform. There could also be a link to the CureAccelerator platform;
which would help to generate new traffic towards it.

92
Incentives: What is in it for people?
The incentive structure of the platform can be improved in order to avoid causing a long-term social dilemma. A social
dilemma is the situation in which an individual’s short-term interest conflict with a long-term collective goal. In this
case, the members’ engagement of CureAccelerator may be affected negatively if users cannot obtain enough benefits
for themselves. To deal with this, it is essential for the platform to strengthen its incentives for each stakeholder,
based on their needs specifically.
Researchers
Step 1: Understand relations between stakeholders
Clinicians ResearchersFunders
Projects
Answer to
RFP’s
Clinicians Researchers
RFPs &
Funds
RFPs &
Funds
Projects
Answer to
RFP’s

93
Step 2: Identify stakeholders’ motivations to use the platform
• To receive supports for projects: When clinicians submit project proposals and off label use
ideas on the platform, they use it to collect both financial support (fund) and academic support
(experiences, ideas, or suggestions shared by other members) to accomplish their research.
• To widen their personal network: Clinicians can use CureAccelerator as a communication
platform to meet other users who share common interests and build their personal ties.
• To obtain valuable information: Clinicians can use the platform as database to look for
treatments to cure patients, build knowledge via discussions, and generate repurposing ideas.
Clinicians
Funders
• To increase publicity: Publicity is to gain exposure via media to increase the public visibility of a
company. From the perspective of funders, having more exposure through the platform is a good
way to promote the brand or their care for the community.
• To build brand awareness: Brand (company) awareness is the extent to which a company is
recognized by the public. For funders, building brand awareness is a significant step to broaden
its business scope and encounter more business opportunities.
• To widen their business network: A strong business network can help funders unlock business
opportunities, meet potential partners for ventures, and generate profitable cooperation.
• To make profit: Whether or not the platform can bring profits to funders directly determines
their engagement. If the platform provides more potential for funders to find candidates to fund,
they are more likely to be continuously involved in the CureAccelerator.

94
Step 2: Identify stakeholders’ motivations to use the platform
Researchers
• To receive funds for projects: The primary purpose of researchers to use CureAccelerator is to
collect funds for repurposing projects. If a large number of funders are actively engaging in the
platform, it will create more potentials for researcher to receive funds, and researchers will be
more willing to participate in the platform.
• To widen the personal network: Researchers can also use the platform as a communication
tool, through which they can meet with other members and build personal networks.

95
Step 3: Create incentives for stakeholders
• Suggestions:
1) Invite influential experts to the platform to host discussions and conferences.
2) Open an official blog for CureAccelerator and ask reputable researchers and clinicians to
publish exclusive repurposing articles and share related experiences.
3) Invite experts of various fields of studies as consultants to offer suggestions and feedbacks
to projects.
• Reasons to do this:
By doing so, these influential experts can enhance their reputation and publicity; registered
clinicians and researchers on the platform can express their opinions and exchange
information. This helps people widen their knowledge and information network. In addition,
from the perspective of funders, having these people on the platform means more
experiences,higher reputation, and greater opportunities to achieve research objectives. Last
but not least, for all these three groups, having experts on the platform helps them improve
the quality of their projects.
Incentives
for all
stakeholders
Invite influential clinicians and researchers

96
• Suggestions:
1) Hold breakfasts/workshops twice a year.
2) Hold conferences of current hot repurposing topics regularly.
• Reasons to do this:
Having workshops every six months allows all stakeholders of the platform to meet new
members and increase their personal ties.It also gives them the opportunity to share and
exchange information received in the previous months.
Current hot topics usually receive great attention from all stakeholders. Attending such events
will help them gain valuable information and create new personal connections. It is also
interesting for funders, since these events can provide valuable information on what field is
getting more attention and where the resources could be directed at to increase success.
Incentives
for all
stakeholders
Hold conferences and workshops on a regular basis

97
• Suggestion:
1) Give rewards to members who have kept a high engagement and collaboration over the
previous year. The reward can be a financial one or moral reward.
2)Invite members who have achieved extraordinary success in their researches to give
speeches and share their experiences and results.
• Reason to do this:
Offering either financial or moral rewards to members in a public event encourages people
who have done a good job with the platform to keep doing it, and the rest to actively engage
in CureAccelerator.
Hold an annual thank-you event
Increase the proportion of funders within the community
Incentives
for
clinicians
and
researchers
• Increase the number of funders and the amount of available fund by 1) creating incentives to
attract more funders (see next slide); 2) inviting more types of funders to the platform to
increase the total amount of available fund (see “Balance”).
• Both of these suggestions offer more potential and opportunities for clinicians and researchers
to receive funds in order to conduct their researches.

98
Incentive for
funders
• Suggestions:
1)For less known funders or start-ups, the blog will focus on their company backgrounds,
current resources and advantages, investment intents, fields of interest etc.
2) For those better known funders, the blog will feature their most outstanding
achievements/investments and introduce their resources,fund intents, and interested fields.
• Reason to do this:
This funder section introduces and promote registered funders to a broad audience
Thus, by implementing these suggestions, funders can receive greater exposure, increase
public visibility, and enhance company awareness.
Create a funder section on blog

99
Collaboration: Achieving results together.
Based on the foundations of the previous four indicators to improve the platform’s network, a much collaborative
environment can be fostered and enhanced. Collaboration amongst members allows both them and the platform to
achieve shared goals and gain benefits. To do so, it is crucial to create a collaborative working environment (CWE),
where people share information and exchange opinions to reach a common understanding.
CWE Create a
gift culture
Create
relational
practices
Define
leadership
Facilitate
collaboration

100
Create
relational
practices
The gift culture is the situation where people are not forced to give rewards for valuables
received, but are willing to do so. In this way, it provides a comfortable environment for
members to collaborate more willingly. To achieve a gift culture, we suggest the platform to
assign an internal consultant to provide daily coaching for members:
• Help set up discussion for problems or unsolved questions appeared in projects.
• Help look for potential teammates or funders to conduct a research.
• Help set up follow-up meetings to check up with researches.
In order to achieve a high-quality collaboration amongst subscribers of CureAccelerator, it is
paramount for the platform to lay the groundwork for its members, particularly to build and
maintain social relationships within the community. Through this process, members can build
personal ties with other members and increase their interactions on the platform. To do this,
we suggest the following:
• Offer breakfast/workshop.Inviting registered members and potential stakeholders to attend
the workshop every six months. Briefly Introduce key features of the platform and new
features (if there have).Divide members into different groups to meet new people and
discuss question. This helps current members to start new relations and helps new and
potential stakeholders get to know the community and better understand the platform.
Create a
gift
culture

101
Define
leadership
A right leadership can promote high-quality collaborative behavior and maximize the
achievements of a team. Hence, it is important to assign leaders who are task- and relationship-
oriented.* If there are not appropriate candidate for leadership who have academic abilities
and good relations with other members, then it is alternative to assign multiple leaders to take
charge of different tasks.
• Assign leaders for different categories of researches: Based on the research types (diseases,
drugs, or devices etc.), assign leaders for every category. The platform can set up online
voting for members to vote for the position, and the leaders can rotate. The responsibility of
this position is to organize activities such as workshop, discussion etc. for its group members
to share and exchange valuable information.
• Assign leaders for specific activities or events: Based on the topics of activities, leaders
should be chosen according to their related academic abilities. For events such as conference
host, leaders should be assigned to people who are more relationship-oriented.
*Gratton, L. & Erickson, T. (2007). Eight ways to build collaborative teams. Retrieved from https://hbr.org

102
Facilitate
collaboration
To effectively generate and enhance the collaboration within the community, the platform
should also provide services to facilitate collaborative groups amongst members.
• Occasional task force service: This service allows members to sign up for task force requests
for their researches. In this case, the platform can 1) choose the task force members from its
current users who are experts in the same field of the researches; or 2) invite external
experts to join the team.
• Conference of hot repurposing topics: Hot repurposing topics are those mostly studied
researches and relatively have a larger amount of value for researchers, clinicians, and
funders. Thus, holding conferences of current hot topics can encourage more users to
participate in. Moreover, in order to better enhance the collaborative environment, the
platform should 1) invite relationship-oriented people to host the discussion at conferences;
2) invite task-oriented experts to prepare the content; and 3) design a proper schedule to
hold conferences on a regular basis to keep the collaboration amongst members.

103
Final Recommendations and Next Steps

104
Final Recommendations
All the ideas and recommendations provided above are considered quick wins or action
items that can be executed in the short term. We firmly believe these suggestions will allow
CureAccelerator to unleash its full potential, while attracting more members to make the
community stronger, more connected and much more collaborative.
To guarantee implementation, we suggest CureAccelerator the following actions:
• Appoint a person to be in charge of project execution.
• Create a project plan and a timeline to deploy all the activities outlined above.
• Define the follow up mechanisms, to ensure everything is being executed according to
plan
• Communicate progress to the organization and platform members. Make your victories
public.
• Use all the suggested measurements and tools for the social media strategy; they will
help the organization quantify the results of the online marketing and social media
strategy.

105
Attachment: Survey Results

106
Results of the User Survey (Common Question)
Everyday
Serveral times a
week
About once a
week
Several times a
month
About once a
month
Less than a
month
Researchers 3% 0% 17% 10% 50% 20%
General Users 0% 0% 10% 20% 10% 60%
Funders 0% 0% 16% 18% 15% 50%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
How often do you visit CureAccelerator.org?

107
Search engine
Email from
Cures within
reach
Presentation
by Cures
Within Reach
at a
conference
Presentation
by Cures
Within Reach
at my
institution
Launching
event
Friend or
business/acad
emic associate
Don't
remember
Researchers 10% 30% 10% 13% 3% 30% 4%
General Users 0% 40% 10% 0% 0% 40% 10%
Funders 0% 50% 17% 0% 0% 33% 0%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
How did you first hear about this site?

108
Never Rarely Occasionally
A moderate
amount
A great deal
I didn't know
there was a
disscussion
feature
Researchers 47% 26% 13% 0% 0% 14%
General users 60% 30% 10% 0% 0% 0%
Funders 33% 33% 17% 17% 0% 0%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
How often do you participate in discussions on CureAccelerator?

109
I did't know there was a
profile on
CureAccelerator
I looked at the profile
page, but didn't add
anything because it
looked like it would take
too much time
I looked at the profile
page, but didn't add
anything because I didn't
want to disclose
additional information
I updated my profile page
Researchers 33% 8% 8% 51%
General users 40% 40% 0% 20%
Funders 17% 16% 0% 67%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
How have you managed your profile on CureAccelerator?

110
Webinars
about
repurposing
research
Forums about
therapeutic
areas
Private chat
rooms to
connect with
specific
researchers or
clinicians
Team
collaboration
pages for co-
investigating
Providing
services to
other users,
such as drug
screening or
animal model
Find service
providers, such
as regulatory
consulting or
GMP drug
manufacturing
Other
Researchers 67% 41% 21% 50% 33% 46% 0%
General users 70% 40% 60% 10% 40% 10% 30%
Funders 25% 10% 0% 75% 32% 0% 0%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Apart from discussions, what other activities would you like to
engage in to connect with other users?

111
Extremely unlikely Unlikely Neutral Likely Extrmely likely
Researchers 0% 4% 7% 50% 11%
General users 0% 11% 22% 56% 11%
Funders 0% 0% 0% 50% 50%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
How likely are you to return to this website

112
Extremely unlikely Unlikely Neutral Likely Extremely likely
Researchers 4% 4% 8% 50% 34%
General users 0% 10% 20% 60% 10%
Funders 0% 0% 0% 64% 33%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
How likely are you to recommend this website

113
Results of the User Survey (Researchers& General Users)
Post a
project in
response to a
request for
proposal
Post a
project
without a
specific
request for
proposal
Connect with
other
clinicians and
researchers
Participate in
a discussion
Agree to be a
science
advisor/
grant
reviewer
Review a
proposal on
CureAccelera
tor
Keep
yourself
informed
about
current
repurposing
research/acti
vities
I have create
an account
but I never
use the
platform
Researchers 33% 20% 3% 10% 30% 10% 33% 7%
General Users 11% 0% 44% 22% 11% 11% 67% 22%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
What do you use or have you used this platform for (choose all that
apply)?

114
Results of the User Survey (For researchers)
56.67%
43.33%
Have you applied to be a "verified researcher" on
CureAccelerator?
No
65%
23%
12% 0%
I didn't know this was available
I don't know why this is important
I haven't posted a project
I didn't want to disclose the information
YES

115
Results of the User Survey (For funders)
Please specify if you are:
An individual funder
An organizational funder67%
33%

116
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Yes, I have funded research
through CureAccelerator
Yes, but not through
CureAccelerator
No, I am still looking for
research to fund on
CureAccelerator
No, I am still looking for
research to fund on any
platform
Have you or your organization funded medical research before?

117
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Up to $5000 $5000~$20000 $20000~$40000 $40000~$60000 Over $60000
What amount have you contributed or would you be willing to
contribute for research through this platform?

118
What do you think about the supply of projects on the platform?
The project supply is so rich here that I can
fully satisfy my needs
The project supply is good, but I still
search on other platforms
The project supply is not enough to fulfill
my needs
The project supply is inadequate. I have
never found any projects that satisfy my
needs or that I find interesting.
80%
20%
0%
0%

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