Strengthening Clinical Relationships: Reflecting on Partnerships in Clinical Trials

In reflecting on the recent Partnerships in Clinical Trials conference in Las Vegas and my discussions with many sponsors, CROs, and vendors, I was struck by how interconnected the clinical landscape has become – and the ways we need to change to make the most of these relationships.

While we have made significant progress in many areas, some challenges still remain. The obstacle I heard discussed most was the difficulty of collaboration and communication between multiple partners, and its impact on the business.

Often, the source of the problem is that each clinical player – site, CRO, and sponsor – operates in its own silo, without visibility into what the others are doing. Take the site initiation process. CROs, sponsors, and investigators may exchange critical documents, like the informed consent template or site contract, via email or fax countless times and go through multiple versions before reaching consensus. Throughout the process, all parties email and call to attempt getting the most up-to-date status on trial progress, at times passing along outdated information, conflicting reports, and trying to answer numerous urgent requests at once. It’s overwhelming, and counterproductive. One presenter at the conference pointed out that, “good communication is absolutely critical to moving the ball forward.” Bad communication can move a trial ten steps back.

As I walked down the dizzying Las Vegas strip on my final night in town, bombarded with its sights and sounds, I reflected on the velocity and volume of information constantly coming at us – emails, instant messages, texts, meetings, and teleconferences.

In our personal lives, Facebook consolidates news and information from friends and family, with pictures, videos, and status updates all in one place. We need to apply this same concept of easy access and full oversight to our clinical trials.

The technology exists make this happen. We can bring sponsors, sites, and CROs together in the cloud in a way that is as easy to access as LinkedIn and Facebook, and as simple to navigate as Amazon. When all partners can access one, intuitive portal to collect and work together on documents, the costs and headaches associated with collaboration are vastly reduced. Implementing this cloud-based source is certainly one way to make our partnerships more effective.

We still have much work to do, but I am excited about the future and the tools now available to us in order to take our clinical trials to the next level. Check out my video interview from the conference, conducted by Larry Florin, on Geeks Talk Clinical to learn more about the latest trends in sponsor-CRO relationships, emerging technologies, and steps we can take today to make studies more effective.