Article 281: Is Study Cost Management Harming Sites?

• Investigative sites report that sponsors and CROs are setting unrealistic budgets and taking much longer to pay study grants. As a result, investigative sites face significant cash flow and profitability problems.

Article 282: A Dynamic and Robust Medical Device Market

• Clinical study grant spending continues to grow by more than 20% annually. Total grants for medical device trials will exceed $500 million in 2002. Most of the pressure to conduct trials for devices is coming from physicians, not the FDA.

Article 283: Centrestage Europe: Trials Unit of North Manchester General to Service Three Hospitals

• Though few hospitals in the United Kingdom have a clinical trials unit, those that do stand to reap handsome benefits following a merger with those hospitals that lack this capacity. Large clinical trials units can potentially gain a competitive edge in offering broadly based study conduct services.

Article 284: Eye On: Kidney Cancer

• Renal cell carcinoma arises from cells lining the renal tube. It affects about three of 10,000 people and accounts for about 85% of all kidney tumors and 3% of all adult cancers. It is now the 10th most common cancer in the United States. While treatment approaches include hormone therapy and arterial embolization, immunotherapy offers the most promise.