• CenterWatch editorial looks back on an active year characterized by heightened regulatory involvement, evolving business models, CRO stability and diversification. Facing intensifying market pressures, sponsors are modifying their clinical research strategies and weighing expansion into new markets.

Article 250: Part-Time Sites Step Front and Center

• Part-time investigative sites perform a significant number of industry-sponsored clinical trials each year. Yet this group is highly fragmented with wide operating variability. As sponsor demand for clinical trials in actual use, community-based settings rises, part-time investigative sites may potentially offer much needed capacity. The short-term challenge will be to raise the performance standards across this segment.

• The German government continues to back a two-and-a-half-year-old system for disease-specific research networks of excellence, which could have considerable implications for clinical trials. While their clinical trials component is still in its infancy, if successful, these networks of excellence could change the way that clinical trials are conducted in Europe.

• Approximately 180,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed every year, and 37,000 men die of the disease annually. It is the most common cancer diagnosed in men and the second leading cause of cancer mortality in men, after lung cancer.