March 2013 – The CenterWatch Monthly

Sites rate the best sponsors 2013

A new CenterWatch survey has found sponsors have done a good job maintaining, but not improving, the quality of their relationships with investigative sites during the past two years. Interestingly, as sponsors increasingly adopt integrated and strategic alliances with CROs, sites reported their relationships with sponsors are less effective in several key areas. More than 75% of sites worldwide rated the overall quality of their working relationships with the average sponsor as “excellent” or “good.” But as sponsors hand over an increasing amount of study conduct to CROs and have less direct contact with sites...

As CRO industry turns 30, a look back at modest beginnings

Some of the most well-known CROs—including Chiltern, Quintiles and Parexel—are marking their 30th anniversaries, highlighting the once uncertain road CROs traveled as they evolved from being a market trend to an integral piece of the drug development landscape. In the early 1980s, the drug world was not thinking about outsourcing. The pharmaceutical arena was busy growing in response to the health issues of the decade and conducting groundbreaking research, but was plagued by secrecy, disorganization and a lack of transparency. There were no standard regulations for clinical trials, so doctors wrote each protocol and tried new operating procedures with each trial...

Also in this issue:

• Giving your customers a voice: Collecting site feedback
• Using real-world data to ‘work smarter’
• Regulatory Update
• Month in Review
• FDA Actions
• Study Lead Opportunities
• New Drugs in the Pipeline